Administration launches websites toward transparency, participation
Posted by Jacque on May 22nd, 2009
Several websites have been launched to further President Obama’s goals toward improving transparency and encouraging citizen participation in government, notes the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The much anticipated data.gov site provides public access to machine readable datasets from government agencies, with the goal of inspiring innovative uses of government data by developers and researchers — a process that has already begun with the Apps for America 2 contest and the Innovations Gallery, which highlights pro-transparency efforts of government agencies.
To improve citizen participation, the government is seeking public submissions to the Open Government Dialogue, a collaborative “idea” site similar to the “Join the Discussion” site used by the Obama transition team earlier. The site will collect and rank policy ideas from the public on topics such as transparency, participation, collaboration, capacity building, and legal and policy challenges. This is the first step in a three-part policymaking process that will include blog discussions and collaborative editing of the recommendations on a wiki. The Administration also relaunched regulations.gov to let the public voice opinions about government rulemakings.
The EFF says they are excited to see the government using the participatory, collaborative power of the web to enhance policymaking processes and look forward to seeing more steps from the Administration to make the promise of government transparency a reality.
