The White House Open Government Dashboard: Seeking Your Input

Cross-posted from the Office of Science and Technology Policy's OSTP blog

On Tuesday, the Open Government Initiative published the new Open Government Directive. The Directive is not the first – only the latest – in a long timeline of open government milestones during the course of the last year.  Since the President signed the executive memorandum on Transparency and Open Government as his first executive action, innovators across the government have been working to create a more accountable and effective government. The Progress Report on Open Government for the American People explains what’s been done to date and where we go from here. Now we need to enlist your help with holding “our feet to the fire” and ensuring that we continue to succeed at changing the way that Washington works.

Next Steps: The White House Open Government Initiative Dashboard

The Open Government Directive calls for the creation of an Open Government Dashboard under the leadership of the CTO and CIO. As agencies implement their open government plans per the Directive, we will use this Dashboard to measure progress and impact, including agencies’ success at developing open government plans across the Executive branch. The Dashboard will combine quantitative and qualitative measures of progress and we are looking to you for your input about what metrics the Dashboard should measure.

Examples of quantitative measures could include:

• Has the agency completed its requirements under the Directive, such as creating an open government webpage, completing an open government plan with public consultation, and posting three new data sets on data.gov?
• Has the agency appointed an “innovation leader” or designated one or more officials to lead the agency’s open government effort?
• What is the percentage change of information the agency publishes online in open, machine-readable formats over the year before?
• How many FOIA requests the agency has resolved and still has pending and the percentage change?
• Does the Secretary or senior officials host a blog, do online townhalls or webchats, or webcast public hearings?
• Does the agency’s Federal Advisory Committees make any use of new tools to facilitate participation by members outside of Washington? Public participation? Work in between meetings?

Examples of qualitative measures could include:

• How does the agency and the public characterize the agency’s level of openness?
• Is the agency successfully posted high-value data, such as information that increases agency accountability and responsiveness; improves public knowledge of the agency and its operations; further sthe core mission of the agency; creates economic opportunity; or responds to need and demand, as identified through public consultation?
• Does the agency sponsor the creation of any “data platforms” for sharing data across agencies and/or levels of government?
• What one new transparency, participation, and collaboration initiative has the agency undertaken in the past year and is planning to undertake next year?
• How does the agency currently get input from scientific experts?
• How well does the agency consult with the public? What innovations are currently in use?
• What impediments, if any, are impeding the agency from undertaking more innovations in participation and collaboration?

Please give us your feedback on the metrics for open government. What would should the dashboard track? What are the best ways to measure progress and the impact of that progress?

We invite your suggestions via the Open Government blog.

Beth Noveck is United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Director of the White House Open Government Initiative