More than 500 Stakeholders across the Department of Defense met virtually and in-person as a part of the Defense Media Activity's efforts to enhance customer experience in the organization's priority to consolidate all military websites within a centralized DoD public web program. DMA's new NextGen pilot program is designed to assess new website user interfaces and increased capabilities to better serve DoD clients. The NextGen pilot program addresses technologies for DoD websites that do not require government authentication and are open to the public.
In 2021, the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (ATSD-PA) directed DMA to consolidate and maintain all DoD public websites via a Directive-type Memo (DTM) 21-001, "DoD Public Web Program" (DTM Link). As a part of this initiative, DMA is conducting monthly collaboration meetings including the Web Summit and a pilot of a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to determine if it complies with DoD requirements.
The Public Web program was established as a component at DMA in Oct. 2020 and was rebranded to the Web Enterprise Business, WEB.mil in Oct. 2021. WEB.mil is responsible for fulfilling the requirements of the 21st Century IDEA Act for DoD public-facing, non-authenticated websites. The 21st Century IDEA Act is a bipartisan law passed in 2018, which aims to improve digital experience for American citizens engaging with federal websites.
DMA is the parent organization for military-produced media brands, including the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), Defense.gov, the military service websites and news services, publications like All Hands and Airman magazine, and American Forces Network. DMA hosts more than 1000 websites on a legacy system, the American Forces Public Information System (AFPIMS). In September 2023, DMA awarded a contract to run an 18-month to test capabilities to sunset AFPIMS.
"AFPIMS has served organizations within the DoD for over ten years, but it is badly in need of updates, and is not a viable platform for the future in consideration of 21st century IDEA and DoD cybersecurity requirements," said Hal Pittman, DMA Director.
"DMA conducted an analysis of alternatives earlier this year to determine the platform that best fit our documented capabilities," said Uttam Kumar, Director WEB.mil. According to Kumar, the key to the success of the pilot will be working collaboratively with partners to develop a cloud-based, public website capability focused on user experience and in compliance with regulations. Kumar emphasized that a key goal of the pilot is enhanced customer experience, and monthly customer collaboration meetings are an important aspect of gathering feedback from clients.
WEB.mil hosted virtual customer meetings in October and November. Seeking to leverage the geography of the National Capital Region to take advantage of face-to-face interactions while sharing information with other partners online, WEB.mil chose to host the December Summit as a hybrid in-person, and virtual forum from DMA Headquarters, at Fort Meade, MD.
During the website Summit, WEB.mil experts provided updates on the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, which requires federal agencies to modernize official websites; TouchPoints, a GSA digital forms technology; the Paperwork Reduction Act, which governs the collection of information on public forms or surveys; the SaaS content management system being utilized for the pilot, and a proposed DOD public web marketplace which would allow DOD units to price out different options for public websites.
"WEB NextGen is DMA's strategic priority for 2024," said Pittman during his opening remarks. "All of you being here is a part of that; we need your engagement. This has got be a collaborative effort."