AINS sponsored and exhibited at the fifth annual American Society of Access Professionals (ASAP) national training conference last week in New Orleans. ASAP is a professional and educational society dedicated to advancing awareness of government information issues and educating access professionals on industry best practices. ASAP membership primarily comprises federal information officers, processors and counsel who administer the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Privacy Act (PA), Executive Orders and other access statues and regulations. Members also include public interest groups with strong interest in the success of open government laws.
The National Training Conference in New Orleans blended basic and more advanced educational sessions over three days. Instructor-led classes provided detailed instruction on the practical every day applications of access statutes and records management as well as professional development sessions. Several sessions provided a direct dialogue between public requesters and public request processors, identifying ways to speed and streamline the public request process.
As access professionals, a majority of the conference attendees use AINS products every day to process access requests. In addition to answering their questions on our FOIAXpress product, we provided attendees with exciting information on our PAL Web Portal. PAL Web Portal provides a secure method of submitting requests, obtaining request status updates, receiving responsive records and downloading frequently requested records via the electronic reading room. PAL Web Portal speeds the public request process by auto-populating FOIAXpress with requester information and by facilitating improved communication with the requester. Attendees also learned about our new FOIA Services division, which provides expert FOIA process consulting and staff augmentation services to help government agencies improve their FOIA process.
We would like to thank all of our FOIAXpress users, as well as those non-users interested in learning more about our products, for stopping by our booth and chatting with us. We hope we were able to answer all of your questions and helped you to improve your public request practices. If not, please let us know what we missed at info@www.ains.com
