To promote open government, students at the Honors College Think Tank on Transparency and Privacy at the University of Utah recently studied 16 local governments in Utah to determine best practices for keeping local government open. The results of the study will be officially released at a press conference on Wednesday, April 11th. Their workRead… Read more »
New data from the Sunshine Review suggests that the Internet is helping increase transparency in government. Just four years ago, in 2010, only 41 public organizations out of over 5,000 which were part of a study received an A grade in terms of web transparency. Today, 214 government websites can say they have an ARead… Read more »
One of my favorite quotes is: “ Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead The first edition of Britannica Encyclopedias appeared in Scotland in 1768. In 11 years a group of Internet volunteers has ended the 244Read… Read more »
Chicago parents have a new tool for understanding the public school selection process: Chicago Public School Tiers, an app launched last week by Open City. The application is a perfect example of how independent civic developers can use open data to improve complicated yet important public processes; an approach that Code for America supports byRead… Read more »
ETHICS.GOV LAUNCH. Story here. “The new website fulfills a campaign promise made by President Barack Obama to centralize ethics and lobbying information for voters.” OBAMA AND LOBBYING. Naivete? “So when the Republican National Committee uses those words from Obama 2008 to ding Obama 2012, it has a point. But the administration’s real sin isn’t beingRead… Read more »
In response to my post yesterday one reader sent me a very thoughtful commentary that included this line at the end: “Rather than compare [Freedom of Information] FOI legislation and Open Gov Data as if it’s “one or the other”, do you think there’s a way of talking about how the two might converge?” OneRead… Read more »
I’m a big supporter of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and the rights of citizens to access information from their government to better understand the processes and data considered around how decisions are made and policies formed. I am also a big supporter of FOI as a tool for public good – including for sharingRead… Read more »
Recently the New York City Council passed what some open government advocates see as a “landmark” bill to increase government transparency and citizen access to machine readable data sets. While this legislation is definitely a welcomed triumph for the Gov 2.0 movement and a positive example for “closed” or “inert governments everywhere, should transparency legislationRead… Read more »
This announcement from the rom the eRulemaking Program Management Office comes from NCDD sustaining member Alexander Moll, Communication Specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency – eRulemaking Branch… WASHINGTON – In recent months, the eRulemaking Program, a Fed-wide E-Gov and Open Gov initiative, which manages Regulations.gov has met with various groups and organizations to discuss waysRead… Read more »
The City of Reno Nevada (population 220,000) has created an Open Government Team, which on their web site is described below as: Open Government Team We are currently forming an internal Open Government Team led by our Web Services Manager. Team members will come from all departments and all levels, with the intention of supportingRead… Read more »