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Public Information about Government Data Will Improve With New Obama Policy

The Obama Administration released an Executive Order and a Policy Directive today that move the federal government forward in a significant direction -- officially requiring that, going forward, data generated by the government be made available in open, machine-readable formats (with appropriate protections). Most notably, it requires that agencies create and maintain an “enterprise data inventory, if it does not already exist, that accounts for datasets used in the agency's information systems" -- with the ultimate goal of including all agency datasets, and with indications whether the agency has determined that the individual datasets may be made publicly available and whether these are currently available to the public.

05/09/2013

Calls for Transparency for Presidential Library Fundraising

As the George W. Bush Presidential library opened last week, groups dedicated to transparency called for light to be shone on the private fundraising done to create such libraries.

04/30/2013

Progress and “Next Steps” on Open Government? Thoughts on the Administration's NAP Self-Evaluation

Both civil society and the government have released reports on what was accomplished through the National Action Plan issued in September 2011. Both reports share one critically important finding: for nearly all the commitments, there remains work to be done and further lessons to be learned. Open government, you could say, is not built in a single year.

04/10/2013

A Deep Dive in the US' National Action Plan: Setting Milestones and Standards

OpenTheGovernment.org is taking deep dives into civil society’s evaluation of the implementation of the US National Action Plan, and taking a look at the lessons learned from the government’s self-assessment. During the evaluation process, a few teams grappled with addressing commitments that were vague, long-finished, or unevenly and incompletely implemented across agencies.

04/10/2013

A 100 Day Agenda for Open Government?

In February our Executive Director took to the pages of The Hill to challenge President Obama to recommit to creating an "unprecedented level of openness in Government" during his second term. She outlined a 100-day agenda to put the US on the path to accomplishing this goal. With more than half of the 100 days gone, we thought it would be an appropriate time to look at what the government has made progress on, and what issues remain to be tackled.

04/05/2013

A Deep Dive in the US' National Action Plan: Open Government Plans

In a recently released evaluation of the Administration's efforts to implement the Nation Action Plan, we note that the government's efforts could more correctly be labeled as "first steps" rather than the needed "leaps forward." We hope to give you a better sense of why we came to this conclusion by taking a deeper dive into the evaluation of the government's efforts for a few of these commitments. Now up: Open Government Plans.

04/03/2013

Groups Support Bill to Make Agency Reports Accessible

More than 20 partners and other allies joined OpenTheGovernment.org in endorsing HR 1380, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, a bill that would make the thousands of reports federal agencies are required to submit to Congress each year easily available.

04/02/2013

What to Watch: Sunshine Legislation

Sunshine Week has grown from a day of freedom of information commemoration to a week-long celebration of government openness, and the public’s right-to-know. The Congress and agencies have also gotten in on the action, and the spirit of the week brought several legislative proposals to the table.

03/19/2013

Growing Open Government with the Open Government Partnership: A Graphic

Explore our process using your arrow keys!

Read the full report here.

03/12/2013

Unprecedented Civil Society Report on US OGP: One Small Step for Open Government

The US met most of its 2011 commitments to make the government more open and accountable according to an unprecedented evaluation of the US’ efforts to implement its first National Action Plan. President Obama presented the US’s commitments at the launch of the Open Government Partnership on September 20, 2011.

While the Plan reflected many of the priorities of open government advocates, the specific commitments included in the plan do not put the US on a path to accomplish those goals quickly. According to Patrice McDermott, Executive Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, “The Administration should be commended for taking good first, if often small, steps forward on a number of issues. Achieving the greater goal of transforming government to be open and accountable to the public, though, will require the proverbial giant leap.”

03/11/2013