Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter

GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications

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Spring 2009

The Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter is produced twice a year by the IntergovernmentalSolutions Division, GSA Office of Citizens Services and Communications; Lisa Nelson, Editor. Send comments and suggestions to: lisa.nelson@gsa.gov.

Transparency in Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Memorandum for the Heads of ExecutiveDepartments and Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Recovery.gov Reveals Details of the Stimulus Spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Democratization of DataUnfettered Access to Data Can Transform Government? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Technology as a Game-Changer . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Information as a Public Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Citizen Views On Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Practices at Work in GovernmentTexas Websites Improve Accountability . . . . . .13Georgia’s Commitment to Customer Service and Good Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15Transparency 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Measuring E-Government 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17E-discovery, Transparency and Culture Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19AGA Opens the Doors of Government to the Citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Shedding Light on CorruptionIndia: Revolutionizing Land Records . . . . . . . . .23Fighting Corruption, While Building Energy Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Through a Glass, Darkly. What do we mean by transparency in government? . . . . . . .28Transparency in Government Begins Outside .29

The Collaborative GovernmentBeyond Transparency in Government . . . . . . . . .31Get Ready for Wiki-Government . . . . . . . . . . . . .33Building the Digital Public Square . . . . . . . . . . .35Open Government Serves Citizens . . . . . . . . . .37

Newly elected President Barack Obama has taken bold steps toinaugurate an era of government openness and transparency. Inone of his first official acts, the President issued a

Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, affirminghis commitment to achieving an “unprecedented level of openness ingovernment.” Making known his belief that transparency is afundamental responsibility of a democratic government, he called for thecreation of an Open Government Directive that would require agenciesto reveal their inner workings and make their data public.

A commitment to government accountability is at the heart of thismessage. By allowing citizens to “see through” its workings andinvestigate whether or not their leaders and organizations have mettheir expectations, the government brings the public into its inner circlesand empowers citizens to contribute to decision-making. As citizensgain knowledge and understanding, their trust in government begins togrow.

Providing government data to citizens in a meaningful way will require aculture change, away from one where data are stored away for internalpurposes to one that looks broadly at how data can be made accessiblefor re-use by the public. The federal website Recovery.gov RevealsDetails of the Stimulus Spending on the $787 billion AmericanRecovery and Reinvestment Act. It will put the data out in useable formso that people can slice, dice and mash it up to gain meaningfulinformation about how government is working.

These data feeds create opportunities to look at government programsin new ways that could never have been imagined by the data collectors.The District of Columbia’s Apps for Democracy Contest drew upon thepublic’s imagination to make D.C. data more useful to constituents.Under the leadership of then-CTO Vivek Kundra, the District sponsoreda contest seeking creative applications that use D.C. government data.The results were astonishing. The 47 entries submitted to Apps forDemocracy within only 30 days “produced more savings for the D.C.government than any other initiative,” according to Kundra, who hassince been named federal CIO.

Transparency in Government By Darlene MeskellDirector, Intergovernmental SolutionsGSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications

Transparency and Open Government

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Making government data available isjust the beginning of the process. Toreach the president’s goal, agenciesmust solicit public feedback toidentify information of greatest use tothe public, expanding citizenparticipation in public policydecision-making. It will bring a newwave of remarkable technologicalapplications that will havegovernment and citizens workingtogether in partnership. The resultingnetwork within which citizens andtheir government can work together tosolve problems, will change the waycitizens and governments interact.

Democratization of DataInformation technology has madedata available to everyone. Thisdemocratization of data unveils theinternal workings of government andsets in motion the wheels oftransformation. Unfettered Accessto Data that Can TransformGovernment examines the

government’s need to look beyondtransparency and accountability whendelivering data to increase workerproductivity and citizen engagement.Technology as a Game Changerlooks at the transformationalpossibilities of inviting greaterparticipation and collaboration fromcitizens. Information as a PublicGood presents examples of Web-based geospatial technologies thatare leveraging government data as apublic good. The results of a surveyconducted by Rutgers University onthe different dimensions regardingwhat citizens are looking for in theway of transparency are detailed inCitizens’ Views on Transparency.

Practices at Work in GovernmentWeb 2.0 practices are changing publicservices now. Governments areproviding citizens with extraordinarytools that inform them and otherswith similar interests. One of thefastest growing trends in state and

local government is to providecitizens with timely, easy tounderstand information on how theirhow their taxpayer dollars are beingspent. Texas Websites ImproveAccountability describes the state’sthree initiatives aimed at improvinggovernment accounting, spending andtransparency. The State of Georgia’sgateway to information and keydocuments about how the statespends tax dollars and other revenuesis outlined in Georgia'sCommitment to Customer Serviceand Good Government.

New Zealand is moving strategicallyto use online tools to engage citizensand learn their views on mattersimportant to them. Onlinecommunities are viewed as partnersworking to improve the quality ofgovernment in Transparency 2.0.

Recognizing the need for a newapproach in the maintenance offederal records, E-discovery,

The president’s January 21, 2009, memo ontransparency and open government viewedas a word cloud.

http://www.wordle.net/

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Transparency and CultureChange lays out a framework forchanges that will enhance access topublic documents. Currentmethodology for measuringeGovernment progress is nearing theend of its usefulness. Measuring E-Government 2.0 presents a newbenchmarking approach formeasuring e-government’s return oninvestment. The Association ofGovernment Accountants establishesa baseline for understanding publicattitudes with regard to transparencyand accountability in AGA Opensthe Doors of Government toCitizens.

Shedding Light on CorruptionIncreasing transparency and citizenparticipation goes a long way towardundermining the problem ofcorruption. Transparency in the oil,gas and mining industry has beengaining traction over the last decade.Fighting Corruption whileBuilding Energy Security looks atthe paradox of resource-rich countriesthat are impoverished because ofcorruption and conflict. In India, landrecords are vital documents for bothfarmers and the government. They areused to prove ownership and arerequired for numerous administrativefunctions. India: RevolutionaryLand Records reveals the incredibleimpact computerization of landrecords has had on the livelihood ofsmall farmers.

Openness and transparency arenecessary for effective governmentoversight and accountability. The ideathat transparency does not guaranteeaccountability is explored in Througha Glass, Darkly: What do we meanby transparency in government?The need for government to tap intothe expertise of others and withstandpublic scrutiny is discussed inTransparency in GovernmentBegins Outside. As U.S. SupremeCourt Justice Louis Brandeis so aptlyput it “sunlight is the bestdisinfectant.”

Collaborative GovernmentThe issues of culture and policy needto be addressed before majorprogress can be made toward a trulycollaborative government.Transparency in Governmentspeaks to theses challenges and theneed to engage citizens to solvetoday’s complex problems. GetReady for Wiki-Government looksat the millennial generation’s use ofsocial networks. This generation willchange the shape of America’sgoverning processes to one wheresome decisions will be made bycrowds.

Government in ancient Athens wasconducted in the public square.People met there to debate civicissues and drive policy decisions.Building the Digital PublicSquare describes how the District ofColumbia is re-creating the publicsquare to bring people closer to their

government using collaborativetechnologies.

Even today, Open GovernmentServes Citizens, as MaryantonettFlumian, the founding head of ServiceCanada illustrates, offering numerousexamples of transparent governmentfrom the public and private sectors inthe U.S. and around the world.Following her lead, this newsletteroffers more of the many stories ofhow cooperation and innovativetechnology are being used to confrontthe huge changes required to createan open and participativegovernment. The range of subjects isjust the tip of the iceberg, and showshow better communications—on alllevels—must be a key priority forgovernment in the future.

President Obama’s January 21 opengovernment memoradum calls fortransparency, participation andcollaboration in government. Thesethree concepts have been underlyingAmerican democracy since the start,but never have they been so central toa presidential vision. With advancedtechnologies and creative use of theInternet, a commitment to opengovernment will go a long way towardgiving the public control of the leversof power, and encouragingwidespread participation in the civiclife of the nation. n

Darlene Meskell is the Director,Intergovernmental Solutions, GSA. Foradditional information contactlisa.nelson@gsa.gov

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My Administration iscommitted to creating anunprecedented level of

openness in Government. We willwork together to ensure the publictrust and establish a system oftransparency, public participation,and collaboration. Openness willstrengthen our democracy andpromote efficiency and effectivenessin Government.

Government should be transparent.Transparency promotesaccountability and providesinformation for citizens about whattheir Government is doing.Information maintained by theFederal Government is a nationalasset. My Administration will takeappropriate action, consistent with

law and policy, to discloseinformation rapidly in forms that thepublic can readily find and use.Executive departments and agenciesshould harness new technologies toput information about theiroperations and decisions online andreadily available to the public.Executive departments and agenciesshould also solicit public feedback toidentify information of greatest useto the public.

Government should be participatory.Public engagement enhances theGovernment’s effectiveness andimproves the quality of its decisions.Knowledge is widely dispersed in

society, and public officials benefitfrom having access to that dispersedknowledge. Executive departmentsand agencies should offer Americansincreased opportunities toparticipate in policymaking and toprovide their Government with thebenefits of their collective expertiseand information. Executivedepartments and agencies shouldalso solicit public input on how wecan increase and improveopportunities for public participationin Government.

Government should be collaborative.Collaboration actively engagesAmericans in the work of theirGovernment. Executive departmentsand agencies should use innovativetools, methods, and systems to

cooperate among themselves, acrossall levels of Government, and withnonprofit organizations, businesses,and individuals in the private sector.Executive departments and agenciesshould solicit public feedback toassess and improve their level ofcollaboration and to identify newopportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer,in coordination with the Director ofthe Office of Management andBudget (OMB) and the Administratorof General Services, to coordinatethe development by appropriateexecutive departments and agencies,within 120 days, of recommendations

for an Open Government Directive, tobe issued by the Director of OMB,that instructs executive departmentsand agencies to take specific actionsimplementing the principles set forthin this memorandum. Theindependent agencies should complywith the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to,and does not, create any right orbenefit, substantive or procedural,enforceable at law or in equity by aparty against the United States, itsdepartments, agencies, or entities, itsofficers, employees, or agents, or anyother person.

This memorandum shall be publishedin the Federal Register. n

BARACK OBAMA

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and AgenciesSUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

Information maintained by the FederalGovernment is a national asset.

Recovery.gov is the governmentwebsite created by the AmericanRecovery and Reinvestment Act

(Recovery Act) to track $787 billion infederal funds Congress appropriated tostimulate the economy. It is introducedon the home page:

The Recovery Act “provides forunprecedented levels of transparencyand accountability so that you will beable to know how, when, and where yourtax dollars are being spent. … Thiswebsite, Recovery.gov, will be the mainvehicle to provide each and every citizenwith the ability to monitor the progressof the recovery.”

All federal agencies will postinformation to Recovery.gov about thesources, recipients and use ofexpenditures under the Recovery Act,to make it easy for citizens to followand understand the impact of thestimulus legislation. Live data feeds tothe site will provide raw data that canbe re-used in graphic presentations orin combination with other data to

generate information about the flow ofthe stimulus funds.

The website will allow users to trackwhere the money is going, search bystate or Congressional district, look upnames of Federal contractors or otherrecipients of Federal dollars, and sendin comments, thoughts, ideas,questions, and responses to anythingon the site.

Recovery.gov also features differentfederal programs, updated informationabout news related to the stimulusprogram, and links to related webpages. The screen shot is an earlyversion of the home page.

For the most part, Recovery Act fundsare funneled through state and localgovernments, which manage citizen-facing programs. State governors weregiven 45 days after the law was signedto claim the funds allocated for theirstates by certifying that they would“request and use” the funds to createjobs and promote economic growth.

States were also expected to createtheir own Recovery Act pages providingdata and information from, and links to,every participating state agency,locality and municipality in the state.The states’ certifications and theirrecovery pages are linked to a statesection of Recovery.gov. This mapshows Recovery.gov’s links to statesites at the beginning of April 2009.

Additional information will be postedon and linked to Recovery.gov as themulti-year spending program isimplemented. Over time, it willdemonstrate the impact oftransparency in government as citizensuse it increasingly to build their ownunderstanding of how their taxpayerdollars are being spent.

Recovery.gov is overseen by theRecovery Accountability andTransparency Board, which reports tothe Vice President and is responsiblefor ensuring that federal agencies aretransparent and accountable inreporting and spending Recovery Actfunds. The Board is composed of 11inspectors general for federal agencies,led by Earl Devaney of the Departmentof the Interior. The website is managedby the U.S. General ServicesAdministration. n

For further information about the websiteand the distribution of Recovery Act funds,go to www.recovery.gov.

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Recovery.gov Reveals Details of the Stimulus SpendingBy John R. MurphyDeputy Program ManagerRecovery.gov

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When SEC ChairmanChristopher Cox announcedin December that,

beginning on a phased-in basis thisyear, corporate reports to the SECmust be filed with XBRL tags so thedata would be interactive, he held upa hand-typed SEC report. It was thekind was common during mychildhood many years ago, and, Coxsaid, “When it was published, thiswas a useful report.”

Back then, gathering anddisseminating data was a long andlabor-intensive process, so perhaps itwas justifiable that data only had tobe reported infrequently and only aselect few agency leaders had accessto it. Unavoidable delays indistributing data made it better forrecording past mistakes than guidingdaily decisions.

Today, it is technologically possible tohave a continuous cycle of datain/data out. There is no longerjustification for withholding data(unless there are overriding securityand privacy issues) from anyone wholegitimately needs it. Today, a “useful”report is a real-time report.

To date, most have focused on accessto this data for transparency (forexample, the Coburn-Obama FederalFunding Accountability andTransparency Act of 2006), so that thepublic, watchdog groups and themedia can scrutinize it. That isimportant particularly in light of thecontroversy about how the first roundof money in the financial bailout was(or wasn’t!) spent.

To look at data feeds just for

transparency, however, is to ignoresome of their more creative uses.Instead, we need to think of“democratizing data,” creating aseamless, continuous data loop inwhich data is:

• Collected in data bases andwarehouses

• Structured (using “tags” such asXML and KML) so that it can easilybe queried and seamlessly sharedbetween various systems

• Automatically syndicated so that itis available when and where it isneeded, and, ideally, on a real-timebasis

• Made available to all workers whoneed it, in forms they can use tomanage their work and collaboratewith others

• Made available externally so thatwatchdog groups can analyze it, as ameans to restore public confidencein government’s integrity.

• Made available externally in formsthat enable civic groups,entrepreneurs and individuals tobecome “co-creators” withgovernment, integrating intoapplications, services, and evenbusinesses can use to improve civiclife and individuals’ lives.

Whether it’s public companies thatnow must meet the new SECregulations or agencies that mustcomply with Coburn-Obama, the majorcost involved is cleaning up andstructuring the data by adding on the“tags.” Once tagged, data can be usedand shared anywhere and the time andmoney spent on adding new uses isnegligible.

That portends an excitingtransformation for governmentworkers. Many will get access to real-time, location-based information thatcan really help them do their jobsbetter, especially if they also haveaccess to data visualization tools (the

Democratization of Data

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Unfettered Access to Data Can Transform GovernmentBy W. David StephensonPrincipalStephenson Strategies

private sector Many Eyes and Swivelsites are good examples) that will helpthem interpret, make sense of, andshare the data.

The District of Columbia used such anapproach with a high-priority programto deliver more than 6,000 PCs topublic school classrooms. The teamcharged with executing the project hadaccess to the District’s GIS systems,and created custom Google Mapsallowing them to deliver and install allof the PCs in only 7 weeks. An earlierplan, without the data-sharing tools,had estimated the project would take ayear.

Another example of how real-timeaccess to actionable data cantransform government was pointed outby the Neighborhood Knowledge LA(NKLA) project, a collaborationbetween UCLA and neighborhoodgroups. They used the Center forNeighborhood Technology’s“Neighborhood Early WarningSystem,” which looks at sevenindicators of neighborhood decline,such as code violations and/orproperty taxes in arrears. NKLA’s siteplots the information on city maps,with each of the seven factors

assigned a different color rectangle.City blocks where multiple indicatorsare present (and which are at higherrisk of serious socio-economicproblems) are immediately obvious tousers. Because these seven sets ofdata are typically created by differentagencies, it is highly unlikely that theywere shared in the past. Agencies thatmight have previously treatedsymptoms of decay in isolation cannow see which blocks must beaddressed first and work together,reducing the cost and increasing theireffectiveness.

Finally, democratizing data canfacilitate an uncharted area ofgovernment innovation, in which thepublic takes structured data feeds andcreates new computer applicationsthat provide real service to the public.The District of Columbia was againthe pioneer in this regard, with its“Apps for Democracy” contest in 2008.Design firms and individuals wereinvited to use one or more of the morethan 260 different data feeds in the“Citywide Data Warehouse” to driveapplications that would increasetransparency or enable public use ofthe data.

In less than a month, 47 usableapplications were created, rangingfrom do-it-yourself walking historicaltours using an iPhone to a “We thePeople” transparency & accountabilitywiki to help the public track D.C.spending. The crowdsourcingphenomenon offers access to data andfree rein to a wide range of people withdiffering interests and expertise.BTW: I wonder which agency will bethe first to sponsor an internal “Appsfor Democracy” contest that allows itsemployees, no matter whether they’rein IT or not, to design a widget or otherapplication that would help their co-workers!

Why stop with accountability if thesame mechanism that makes possibleautomatic delivery of structured datacan also help government workers bemore productive and even involvecitizens in designing innovativeapplications to supplement traditionalgovernmental services. I’d call thatTransparency Plus. n

W. David Stephenson is an e-gov and Web2.0 consultant and theorist. He is the leadauthor of the forthcoming DemocratizingData.

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The goal of electronicgovernment is not just tosubstitute one delivery system

for another. If people go online andprint out a report instead of calling upthe Food and Drug Administration,that is not a major systemtransformation. It doesn’t change howgovernment functions or how officialsthink about their mission.

Rather, it is important to think oftechnology as a “game-changer” that

transforms the culture, organization,and functioning of government.During the campaign, candidateBarack Obama pledged to putdetailed public sector informationonline and make it searchable. Hestated that he wanted to create “acentralized Internet database oflobbying reports, ethics records andcampaign finance filings in asearchable, sortable anddownloadable format.” In addition, he

proposed a “contracts and influencedatabase” that publicizes how muchmoney federal contractors receive,how much they spend on lobbying,and how effectively they fulfillgovernment contracts. Improvingtransparency through onlineinformation will be a great boon toresearchers, reporters, and ordinarycitizens, and make it easier to followthe government money trail.

Digital technology represents a wayfor government to become moretransparent and pro-active in dealingwith citizens and businesses. Manygovernment agencies today arereactive in nature. They wait forpeople to request information orservices. However, the Internetallows government agencies tocustomize information and push

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Technology as a Game-ChangerBy Darrell M. WestVice President and Director of Governance StudiesBrookings Institution

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material out to people. On somegovernment websites, you canregister as having interests inparticular subjects. Let’s say you are asoybean farmer in Iowa and haveregistered that interest with the U.S.Department of Agriculture website.When new research comes out ofIowa State University on soybeans, ormarket conditions change,government agencies can emailreports to those people and say hereis something you should know about.It brings a different mentality togovernment and puts agencies in themold of helping people where theywant to be helped. You can envisionsimilar applications in health care,

education, climate change, andvariety of other areas. If someoneattends a public school in Cleveland,Ohio, local education officials cannotify parents of importantdevelopments affecting that school.Hospitals can target peopleinterested in staying up-to-date ondiabetes treatments by sending themmaterial on new research in the area.

Information technology providesfeedback on how agencies are doing. I visited China a couple of years agoas part of a technology delegation.Going through passport control whenwe landed at the Beijing Airport, Inoticed an electronic device thatasked me to rate the performance ofthe passport officer on a 1 to 4 scale.This represented an innovativeexample of introducing transparencyand accountability into the system. Ifthere is a spike upward in complaintsabout a particular official or specificagency, administrators know there isa problem and this feedback providesan opportunity to address inadequateperformance.

Digital tools offer the potential toinvolve more people in decision-making. Before President Obamasigns legislation, he plans to wait fivedays to allow for public comments.People will be able to go to a websiteand say,”Yes, you should sign thisbill” or”No, you shouldn’t, and theseare the reasons why you shouldn’t.” Inthe same vein, the EnvironmentalProtection Agency has been using e-rulemaking on proposed federalregulations to broaden citizenparticipation in government. TheBrookings Press is publishing a bookentitled Wiki-Government by BethNoveck formerly a professor at NewYork Law School, and now in the

Office of Science and TechnologyPolicy at the White House. It is terrificresearch on how governments canharness the power of collectiveknowledge in decision-making. Sheproposes that agencies such as thePatent and Trademark Office set upwikis in which people can commenton proposed patents and helpauthorities decide what truly is new.

The digital revolution gives politicalleaders a way to bring outsidepressure to bear on Congress andthereby help break the partisangridlock that has plagued our nationalgovernment for years. There has beeninaction on leading issues such ashealth care, Social Security, climatechange, and immigration. PresidentObama has substantial Democraticmajorities in the House and Senate,but he should remember thatPresidents Jimmy Carter and BillClinton had the same thing early ineach of their administrations. Neitherof those Democratic presidents wasable to get much passed and Clintonwas not able to get Congress to take asingle vote on the centerpiece of his

domestic agenda (health carereform).

There are 13 million email addressesin the Obama campaign database.After the election, the campaign senta survey to each of these, asking forzip code, phone number, issueinterests (such as gay rights,disability, health care, or education),and willingness to contact publicofficials. It is obvious what Obama isgoing to do with this information.When tough votes come beforeCongress, he is going to asksupporters to contact legislators insame way President Reagan did in1981 with letters and phone callswhen he wanted to pass his landmark

tax cut legislation. Electronictechnology will allow Obama toharness his grass roots movement tofurther his political objectives.

When you add all these thingstogether, Obama has the potential touse technology to improvegovernment transparency andreinvigorate democracy. His mostimportant challenge, though, will bepublic and media cynicism. Publictrust in government is at an all-timelow. When people are cynical, theydon’t believe anyone really is going tomake a difference. But if Obama canmaintain the sense of hope, he willbecome our first truly digitalpresident. n

Darrell M. West is Vice President andDirector of Governance Studies at theBrookings Institution. He is the author ofDigital Government: Technology andPublic Sector Service and previously wasthe Director of the Taubman Center forPublic Policy at Brown University. Foradditional information contactdwest@brookings.edu.

It is important to think of technology as a “game-changer” that transforms the culture, organization, and functioning

of government.

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IntroductionThe new administration has madetransparent and open government atop priority. As part of this mission,agencies are encouraged to “harnessnew technologies to put informationabout their operations and decisionsonline and readily available to thepublic.” Further, agencies are askedto view information as a “nationalasset” to be shared with the citizens.I would contend that the information

President Obama is askinggovernment to share with citizens is apublic good. If we view informationas a public good then there is theopportunity to not only createtransparency but also savegovernment resources and moneywhile stimulating the economy. Firstwe need to clearly define the meaningof 'public good.'

Information as a Public GoodIn economics the concept of a “publicgood” describes a situation in whichthe consumption of a good or serviceby one individual does not reduceavailability of the good or service forothers; therefore no one can beexcluded from using it. A classicexample of a public good is alighthouse. All ships benefit from thelighthouse, and if more ships benefitfrom the lighthouse that does notadversely affect the community ofships. As opposed to an apple whichis a finite resource. If I take a bite ofthe apple, there is less of the apple foryou. From this perspective, theinformation President Obama is

asking agencies to share with citizenscan be viewed as a public good. If theEPA makes information on thelocation of toxic dumping available,and I use that data to inform myneighborhood of hazards, I have notinhibited anyone else from using thedata for other purposes. There is asocietal benefit to making informationopen and available to the public.

This concept is not new, but if weconnect the idea to technology there

is the opportunity to create evengreater benefits beyond transparency.The government can makeinformation available as reports,maps and charts, but it can also makeit available as data. Specifically,government can provide the rawsource data that is the foundation forreports and statistics. The firstbenefit of this approach is that itprovides greater transparency ofgovernment. Any individual or groupwould be able to check the validity ofstatistics and conclusions drawn frominformation produced by thegovernment. This provides anotheravenue for citizens to participate andcollaborate with government.

The GeoWeb as a Use CaseFrom a technology perspective, opendata has the positive externality ofcreating opportunities for citizens and“the market” to innovate with thedata. If the government can providewell-organized data in commonformats, then technology and servicescan be built on top of the data. Therehas been enormous success already

with companies and non-profitstaking open government data andcreating sophisticated technology andservices around them. A stellarexample of this is the phenomenalgrowth of Web-based geospatialtechnologies – often called theGeoWeb. Google Earth uses datafrom NASA, NOAA, U.S. Navy,National Geo-spatial-IntelligenceAgency and other governmentagencies to create the virtualpanoramas of our planet.

EveryBlockAnother innovative example isEveryblock, a web application thatcombines metropolitan data likecrime, road construction, buildingpermits, and sanitation violationsstatistics and makes informationeasily accessible to the public forconsumption. The image below showsthe results for recent crimes in theFederal Triangle neighborhood ofWashington D.C.

In both instances open public data isbeing made available to the public inan attractive and consumable form.Not only do these applications makethe data more transparent, they havealso fueled innovation and businesscreation.

Apps for DemocracyVivek Kundra, the former D.C. CTOhas leveraged the combination ofopen government data with thetechnology community to greatsuccess. He made D.C. governmentdata open to the public in commonformats then ran a contest, “Apps for

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Information as a Public GoodBy Sean Gorman, PhD CEO and FounderFortiusOne

The government can make information available as reports,maps and charts, but it can also make it available as data.

Democracy,” for developers to createinnovative applications with the data.This contest resulted in thedevelopment and submission of 47applications. The D.C. CTO’s officeestimated that the cost of having theD.C. government develop these appswould have exceeded $2 million andrequired 1-2 years of effort betweencontracting, procurement anddevelopment. The contest cost a totalof $50,000 and was delivered in 30days. Not only did Kundra’s effortsenable more transparency aroundD.C. Government, they also saved thecity a substantial amount of money.

OpenStreetMapThe benefits to government of makingdata public do not stop with savingmoney. In the United Kingdom, muchof the data produced by thegovernment is sold for a fee. This isespecially true in the case ofgeospatial data, where the OrdinanceSurvey charges large sums of moneyfor a variety of geospatial data. Thisled to the creation of a non-profitproject called OpenStreetMaps,where volunteers use consumer GPSunits and Web software to map outstreet infrastructure. The project hasgone global with more than 80,000

contributors and 800 million datapoints. When OpenStreetMap cameto the United States, the CensusBureau’s TIGER line street data werealready available in the public domain.This provided a huge jump-start forOpenStreetMap and the team quicklybegan updating and correcting errorsin the data.

Now there is a resource with updatedand more accurate TIGER dataavailable for the public. This costCensus no additional resources andno additional budget. In addition, thedata made available byOpenStreetMap has provided thefoundation for several technologystart-ups creating new jobs andinnovation in the marketplace.

ConclusionAll four examples; Google Earth,EveryBlock, Apps for Democracy andOpenStreetMap, demonstrate thepotential of leveraging governmentdata as a public good. The public hasgreatly benefited from thetechnologies built around the data,and the use of the data has notremoved value from the government.In fact the government has gained –saving money, saving resources,

receiving higher quality data in return,and arguably the data has drivenproduction of technology applicationsthat the government would havecontracted for. Further, thegovernment has created an economicstimulus by providing data aroundwhich business can be built. Ofspecial significance is the innovation-based economic stimulus for smalland medium sized businesses, whichare the backbone of America’s jobcreation engine. Most importantly,these projects and the approachesoutlined serve the purpose of makinggovernment more transparent andinviting greater participation andcollaboration. Each of these examplesbuilt a community around the datathat is passionate about both itsaccuracy and application. We have acollective opportunity to promotechange that will revitalize theeconomy and society, and this is onepath that will get us closer to thoselofty goals. n

Sean Gorman founded FortiusOne in 2005to bring advanced geospatial technologiesto market. For further information, contactsean.gorman@fortiusone.com,703.247.9280 or elarson@fortiusone.com,703.622.4878.

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The proper balance betweengovernmental secrecy and opengovernment is at the forefront

of contemporary public debate.Intuitively, it seems individuals differin their level of demand forgovernmental transparency.Governmental transparency is thedegree to which there is access togovernment-held information. Somefeel strongly about the need to accessgovernment information and to learnmore about what government is doing,whereas others are less interested.

Moreover, people differ in terms of thekinds of government information theyseek to access. Using data from anational online survey, we developseveral indices to measure citizens’demand for local governmentaltransparency and to identify itscorrelates.

Two initial questions are addressed inthis study: (a) How can we measurecitizens’ desire or demand forgovernmental transparency, andspecifically, are there differentdimensions to such a demand? and(b) What personal and contextualfactors are correlated with variationin the level of demand forgovernmental transparency? We focuson local government transparencybecause citizens have a more directstake in local issues (like crime andland use) and because the data forour research, explained more fullybelow, come from a survey researchproject focused on local governmentaffairs.

Research MethodThe data for our analysis come froman online survey conducted in March2005 of participants in theeTownPanel project, an opt-in e-mailpanel of approximately 6,044 activeparticipants (at the time of the study).The eTownPanel project is auniversity-affiliated, foundation-funded online research resourcecreated to provide a generalpopulation of volunteers toparticipate in surveys about local

community issues and governmentperformance, in particular surveyssponsored by local nonprofitorganizations, government agencies,and academic researchers. Volunteersare recruited from various onlinepostings and e-mail lists and are not arandom sample of the U.S. population.Invitations were sent via e-mail to theentire panel, and a total of 1,819completed the questionnaire, for apanel response rate of 30percent.

The survey asked a large number ofquestions about transparency ingovernment, as well as questionsabout other attitudes and behaviorsthat were hypothesized to be potentialcorrelates or determinants of thedemand for transparency. Weconducted an exploratory factoranalysis to reduce the transparencyitems and to create scales.

FindingsThe data and analysis suggest that

there are several dimensions to thepublic’s demand for transparency,including fiscal, safety, andgovernment concerns, and principledopenness. Age, political ideology,confidence in government leaders,frequency of contacting government,and especially the perception thatthere is currently not enough accessto government appear to drive thepublic’s demand for transparency,although determinants differ for eachdimension. Some, although not all, ofthese factors also predict citizens’

actual requests for governmentinformation.

Our analysis reveals some insights onthe structure and possibledeterminants of public demand fortransparency at the local level. Thereappear to be potentially differentdimensions to the public’s demand forgovernmental transparency,dimensions related to public finances,safety, the principle of opengovernment, and the notion of good orhonest government. In addition, ouranalysis suggests several keydeterminants of these various formsof public demand for transparency.Perhaps the public’s perception ofhow much openness currently existsin government emerges as asignificant factor across the variousmeasures of demand for transparency.Those who view government asalready adequately open demand lesstransparency, whereas those who seegovernment as closed seek more.People who are politically engaged

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Those who view government as already adequately opendemand less transparency, whereas those who see

government as closed seek more.

Citizen Views On TransparencyBy Suzanne J. Piotrowski andGregg Van RyzinRutgers University - Newark

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and who frequently contactgovernment also tend to demandmore transparency.

The trust-in-government literaturehas found that there is a relationshipbetween trust in government and theperception that democracy is“working well.” In three of the fivescales, confidence in local officialshad a statistically significant,negative relationship to demand for

transparency. The more confidencecitizens have in their local officials,the less they are interested in fiscal,principled, and good governmenttransparency. Senator John Cornyn ofTexas stated that “open governmentis fundamentally an American issue,not a Republican or Democrat issue.”Using party affiliation as a proxy forideology, Republican Cornyn is halfright. Self-identified conservativesand liberals were both interested intransparency, just different types oftransparency. Although conservativesquestioned the need for transparencymore than liberals, they also weremore concerned than liberals aboutaccessing safety-related information.Self-identified liberals, on the otherhand, were more concerned withaccessing government information onprinciple and for good governanceconcerns.

Finally, a number of potentialpredictors we expected to be relatedto the demand for transparency failedto enter significantly into our models.Although past literature identifiesrace as related to trust in governmentand satisfaction with governmentservices, race was not related toattitudes toward transparency. Racewas, however, related to the behaviorof obtaining government documents.

ConclusionsOur questionnaire focused almostexclusively on the municipalgovernment level. This is appropriatebecause individuals have so much oftheir government contact at the locallevel. Even with this is mind, it ispossible that national-level issuesaffect individuals’ demand fortransparency of local-leveldocuments, the most obvious of whichare national defense and homelandsecurity. A question, or series ofquestions, ascertaining respondents’views on these topics could beincluded in future research. Theperceived high cost of governmentaltransparency and the desire forpersonal privacy are two possiblereasons why individuals may wantless transparency. Future researchshould include questions that address

these issues to either confirm ordisprove the expected relationships.

This research begins to develop a wayof measuring dimensions of thepublic’s demand for transparency, andsome of the determinants of thesedimensions. Because no previousresearch has attempted to measurethese concepts, this study should beseen as providing an exploratory,empirical foundation for future work

on the topic. The results presentedprovide both predicted and surprisingresults. More thought and attentionneeds to be turned to this topic tobetter understand the link betweendemand for transparency and itspotential correlates. n

This is based on a research article titled“Citizen Attitudes Toward Transparency inLocal Government” published in the in TheAmerican Review of PublicAdministration (2007; volume 37 No.3p306-323). Suzanne Piotrowski and GreggVan Ryzin are both faculty members of theSchool of Public Affairs and Administrationat Rutgers University-Newark. Foradditional information contactspiotrow@rutgers.edu andvanryzin@rutgers.edu.

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People who are politically engaged and who frequently contact government also tend to demand

more transparency.

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In the Texas State Comptroller’sOffice, we continuously pore overbudgets in keeping the books for

our agency and the State of Texas as awhole — a large task, and one thatshould be open to scrutiny. By myfourth day as Comptroller, wepublished all of our agencyexpenditures online, right down to thepencils. And thanks to our Where theMoney Goes website, ourexpenditures and those of other stateagencies are available and easilysearchable online.

In these tough economic times, alltaxpayers — at the city, county, stateand federal levels — deserve to knowtheir tax dollars are used wisely. Justas working families must cutexpenses and look for ways to save,all governments must tighten theirbelts and make the most of everydollar.

Our office endeavors to do its part inimproving Texas governmenttransparency, and some of ourinitiatives may stand as templates forother governments in craftingtransparency initiatives. Taking acommon-sense approach to the issue,we recently introduced Open BookTexas, a three-part set of initiativesaimed at improving governmentaccounting accuracy, spending andtransparency.

First Initiative: Single Set of BooksTo shine more light on state agencybookkeeping, beyond our Where theMoney Goes online expendituredatabase, we are pursuing aninitiative to introduce more uniformityin Texas government accounting.

In 2007, the Texas Legislature askedthe Comptroller’s office to create anadvisory council with other stateagencies to examine uniform financialaccounting in state government.

Today, Texas state agencies use manysets of books with sometimesconflicting accounting data. Anygiven agency might use its ownbookkeeping methods and codes fortracking and classifying items, arecipe for duplication that can makeaccurate statewide bookkeeping anenormous challenge. With the SingleSet of Books Initiative, our office willwork with agencies to present a reportto the Legislature on ways that stateaccounting systems and processescan be made more accurate anduseful in decision-making.

Uniform financial reporting across allstate agencies and higher educationinstitutions will shine the brightestlight on the state’s finances and allowstate leaders to obtain real-time,reliable information to make well-informed decisions.

Second Initiative: Texas Smart BuyTransparency helps spotlightspending inefficiencies after the fact,and our office also works to makeTexas state government a bettershopper from the outset. That iswhere Texas Smart Buy helps.

The initiative gives agencies andlocal governments access to an onlineshopping cart — much like shoppingat popular online retailers — thatallows them to purchase goods andservices through state-negotiatedcontracts. By purchasing from those

contracts, individual purchasers canleverage the state of state’s bulkbuying power to receive lower prices.

Our office expects Texas to save atleast $28 million in phase one of TexasSmart Buy. The savings and cost-avoidance represent more than8percent of state spending for certaingoods and services. Already, Texashas identified these savings and costavoidances:

• Overnight/express mail — the statesaved 34percent, or $3.8 million,and awarded a significant portionof this contract to a Texas-basedvendor.

• Outgoing mail machines — thestate saved 20percent, or $876,000,by negotiating a new contract witha long-time vendor.

• Fleet —the state expects to save $7million on fleet vehicles throughcontract negotiations. Also, for thefirst time, the state will look beyondthe sticker price to consider thecost of fueling vehicles for 100,000miles.

As one of the largest purchasingentities in the nation, our state ismaking that leverage work for us. Foryears, families have used strategieslike buying in bulk to save money, andit makes sense for governments tohave the same option.

Third Initiative: Texas Transparency Check-UpWith the rollout of a new website,Texas Transparency Check-Up, ouroffice expands on previous onlineaccountability efforts and encouragestransparency at all levels of Texas

Practices at Work in Government

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Texas Websites Improve AccountabilityBy Susan CombsComptrollerState of Texas

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government finance. The websiteoffers transparency guidance to localgovernments and provides Texans anopportunity to see how well their localgovernments stack up in offeringonline access to financial information.

In implementing this initiative, weresearched the financial transparencyof the top 50 Texas cities, Texascounties, school districts and otherlocal entities. Texas TransparencyCheck-Up reveals the results. The sitealso offers local governments step-by-step advice for posting informationonline and presenting it in a way thatis readable and understandable to the

public.

The website highlights localgovernment success stories, provideslinks to exemplary local governmentwebsites and gives taxpayers tips toensure that their government is openand accountable.

When you know what you arespending, you know how to spendbetter. Our office is committed toseeing that philosophy spread toevery level of government. In the ageof the Internet, there is seldom areason to not publish publicinformation online.

Transparency and wise spending areimportant during the best of times andabsolutely essential in an uncertaineconomy where there are no dollars towaste. To operate with the utmostintegrity, all governments shouldshow the same common sense,resourcefulness and thrift whenspending money as taxpayers. n

Susan Combs was elected TexasComptroller of Public Accounts inNovember of 2006. For an in-depth look atOpen Book Texas initiatives, visitwww.window.state.tx.us/openbook.

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Georgia elected officials show acommitment to governmenttransparency and high ethical

standards through the use oftechnology. Through the Open Georgiawebsite (www.open.georgia.gov) andthe Secretary of State’s Transparencyin Government website(http://www.sos.georgia.gov/TIG),citizens have direct access to detailedaccounts of government spending.

The Open Georgia site was created bythe Transparency in Government Actand formally launched on January 5,2009.

“The Open Georgia website makesstate government more transparent toits customer, the taxpayer,” saidGeorgia Governor Sonny Perdue at thetime. “By being willing to further openthe halls of government to the public,we give citizens more confidence thattheir tax dollars are being spentwisely.”

“We have taken a major step towardsfully open and easily accessibleaccounting of how every state taxdollar is spent,” said its sponsor StateSenator Chip Roberts. “The very bestway to prevent wasteful governmentspending is to let those paying the billssee exactly where their money isgoing.”

Open Georgia allows citizens onlineaccess to agency expenditures onprofessional services, employeesalaries and travel expenses, statefinancial reports and program reviews.In the Salaries and TravelReimbursements section, the publiccan find salaries and travelreimbursements paid to employees ofthe state and employees of localboards of education. The “professionalServices and Expenditure” section of

the website allows you to findprofessional services expendituresmade by state organizations. OpenGeorgia also includes financial reportscontaining the Comprehensive AnnualFinancial Report, budgetarycompliance reports, the Budget inBrief and single audits. The site allowsGeorgians to review payments tovendors doing business with the stateduring the two previous fiscal years.

The website also allows citizens tosearch for reports that evaluate howwell various state programs areoperating, including performanceaudits, program evaluations, andspecial examinations released by theDepartment of Audits and Accountsover the last five years. In 2010, it willbe expanded to include grant andcontact payments to vendors by stateagencies.

There are numerous ways to search forsalary and vendor information. Userscan search by name, title, descriptionand agency and export search resultsto Microsoft Excel or Adobe .pdfformats.

To ensure that the website is able tocarry out its mission the state hastrained operators at its main phonenumber, 1-800-GEORGIA, to directcitizens to a specific web address or toanswer detailed questions about thestate’s performance. The commitmentto provide further details on spendingis part of a larger commitment from thestate to make government morecustomer-friendly.

Georgia Secretary of State KarenHandel has demonstrated acommitment to governmenttransparency, ethics and responsiblestewardship of taxpayer dollarsthrough her agency’s Transparency in

Government initiative. Georgians canaccess her agency’s budget andmonthly expenditures, with detailedinformation on spending categories.The Secretary of State’s websitehighlights the agency’s ethics policyand Secretary Handel’s personal andcampaign financial disclosures.

“Responsible fiscal managementbegins with a commitment totransparency and accountability,” Shesaid. “Georgia taxpayers deserve toknow how their tax dollars are beingspent, and I am pleased to providethem with that information.”

In addition to these new tools, Georgialawmakers continue to look foradditional ways to make publicinformation easily accessible. Rep. EdLindsey introduced legislation in the2009 session of the General Assemblythat would require counties, cities andschool boards with budgets over $1million to develop a free, searchablewebsite that would include all sourcesof revenue, itemized by amount; theentity’s annual budget; a list of allcontracts and obligations of more than$1,000; and an itemization of salariesand other expenses paid to all publicofficials and employees.

Georgia officials know governmentfunctions best when it is madeaccountable to the citizens who fund it.Georgia’s dedication to makinginformation easily accessibledemonstrates that the state continuesto lead the way in truly becoming acitizen-friendly government. n

For additional information, please contactthe Georgia Governor’s Office ofCommunications at 404-651-7774, or theGeorgia Secretary of State’s Office of MediaRelations at 404-656-4269.

Georgia’s Commitment to Customer Service and Good GovernmentBy the Georgia Governor’s Office of Communications and the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office of Media Relations

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Thanks to the popularity of theterm Web 2.0, the suffix ‘2.0’ isbeing applied to just about

anything. However, there is one benefitfrom this indiscriminate labelling. Ithelps frame some importantquestions—What is the current 1.0state? What are the limitations of the1.0 state? What are the drivers for the2.0 state? Finally, how do we get there?

Transparency 1.0The people’s right to know is a centralpillar of democratic societies.Transparency, which gives effect tothis right, is a critical element forbuilding and maintaining trust ingovernment. Effectively holdinggovernment accountable for services,decisions, and spending taxpayers’money depends on transparency.

Transparency 1.0 is underpinned by alegislative framework. For example, inNew Zealand the Official InformationAct allows people, with very fewexceptions, to get the information theywant from ministers and governmentorganisations. Fiscal transparency ismandated by the Public Finance Actand the Reserve Bank of New ZealandAct.

Our robust transparency regime hasbeen internationally recognised. NewZealand is joint first with Denmark andSweden on TransparencyInternational’s 2008 CorruptionPerception Index (seewww.transparency.org). While the listleaders have changed over the years,New Zealand remains near the top.This isn’t by resting on previousachievements but by actively workingon openness, trust, and transparency.

The legislative framework iscomplemented by other measures,

mostly by individual agencies. TheState Services Commission, in itsleadership role of the State Services,provides information and metrics at anall-of-government level. Two notableexamples are the Kiwis Count survey,which looks at perceptions of thepublic service, and the annual HumanResource Capability survey of thegovernment workforce.

Limitations of the 1.0 stateThere is always room for improvement.For example, the potential to bettersystematise the release of governmentinformation and to improve theoperation of the Official InformationAct has been identified.

Notwithstanding the improvementsthat can and should be made to thecurrent transparency regime, there arelimitations inherent in the dynamic andmindset that Transparency 1.0addresses. Either people ask forinformation and government respondsor the government makes it availableunder a legislative or good-practiceimperative. The underlying assumptionis one of inequality; a mindset ofopposing interests that requires awatchdog.

In this situation, transparency providesa vital check and balance dynamic.However, Transparency 1.0 by its verynature cannot act as a major enablinglever that uses transparency’spotential to fundamentally transformthe relationship between people andgovernment.

Change driversThe easiest way to describe thedrivers of change is to point to theemergence of Web 2.0. The averageperson now has the capability --

processing power, tools, bandwidth,and mobile computing -- that waspreviously only available to largeorganisations and governments.Futurists point to non-linear changewhich means that people’s capabilitieswill only accelerate.

The Web has gone from read-only toread-write. The 2.0 dynamic is verydifferent from the 1.0 state. People aretreated as partners, equals in pursuitof shared outcomes and commongoals. In turn, this is driving theexpectations that people have ofgovernment.

Change is happening now.There are too many examples aroundthe world to ignore. Oft-quotedexamples include New Zealand’sTheyWorkForYou and the UK’sFixMyStreet. Less well known butequally powerful is Sami BenGharbia’s campaign out of theNetherlands to highlight the issue ofpolitical prisoners in Tunisia. Hisefforts include a Google map mashupof the semi-secret locations where theprisoners are being held with YouTubevideos and a blog.

Getting to Transparency 2.0Three things can facilitateTransparency 2.0 and enhance publicvalue.

First, the default should be that allnon-personal data and informationheld by government is publiclyavailable. This requires a huge shift inattitudes and practices and istherefore likely to be part of a largerrenewal of the democratic fabric. It isa worthy goal and even incrementalsteps are welcome. The Scandinaviancountries present good examples ofwhat can be achieved.

Second, data and information shouldbe freely available and usable. Thismeans it is easy to find; in openmachine-readable formats; hasadequate metadata; licensing isstandardised with no or minimalconstraints on reuse; pricing isreasonable (zero cost being the norm);

Transparency 2.0By Laurence MillarDeputy Commissioner and Government CIOState Services CommissionNew Zealand

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and it is timely.

Finally, there needs to be a shift togenuine dialogue; with two-wayconversations and participationreplacing consultation. Key enablersare a reduction of informationasymmetries and the development ofmutual respect.

Within the New Zealand StateServices there have been a fewtentative steps towards this goal. It’sblog In Development (http://blog.e.-govt.nz) allows for a much richer andongoing conversation betweenofficials and people. Public inputs intorevamping the Police Act in 2007 useda wiki with some success. A commun-ity forum was also used in 2007 todiscuss and come up with ways toincrease road safety. A broadbandmap provides transparency of supplyand demand National Broadband Maphomepage (http://broadbandmap.-govt.nz/map) on the leading to better

investment decisions and widerchoice.

These are still the exception ratherthan business as usual. They arehowever beginning to have a small butreal impact on outcomes and arepromising signs of the dawn ofTransparency 2.0.

One of the challenges is measuringprogress. A promising framework tomeasure transparency in this new erahas been put forward by EuropeanCommission researcher David Osimo.Osimo contends that the modelcurrently being used to measure e-government progress is outdated andbased on an old vision of government.To accurately measure progress in aWeb 2.0 world, the Osimo model hasfour stages of transparency andreusability of public data (from noinformation to reusable and machine-readable data).

Key MessageOur vision is “A world class system ofprofessional State Services servingthe government of the day and meetingthe needs of New Zealanders.” Theseneeds are changing, now more thanever, and therefore the State Servicesneeds to change. One good responseis to develop a new level oftransparency fit for the 21st century -call it Transparency 2.0 or somethingelse - even as we strengthen ourcurrent transparency regime.

This new level of transparency will bebased on a win-win dynamic.Government will work withcommunities as a partner, jointlyachieving the public outcomes thatsociety wants. n

Laurence Millar is the first New ZealandGovernment CIO. For additionalinformation contactLaurence.Millar@ssc.govt.nz.

In the context of e-governmentpolicies, measurement tools haveenjoyed high success over the last

ten years. Following the managementmantra “if you can’t measure it, youcan’t manage it,” policy makers havelooked for robust measurement tools tosupport decisions. A considerablenumber of initiatives have beenestablished, at the regional and globallevels. The UN global e-governmentsurvey, the Brown global e-governmentreport, the European benchmarking e-government survey, are three wellknown examples, all based on a humanassessment of government websites.

One of the reasons behind thisflourishing of measurement tools is theactual difficulty for policy-makers tomanage e-government and show its

benefits. The technical nature of e-government calls for non-technicalmanagement tools which are able toinform political discussion anddecisions. In other words,measurement and benchmarking hasbecome an essential tool to steer andshape e-government policies.

In Europe, in particular, benchmarkingplays a particularly important role tocoordinate policy measures acrossdifferent European Union MemberStates. The European approach tomeasuring e-government has beenhighly successful in establishing asimple, robust and easilyunderstandable measurement method.This metric has become veryinfluential among policy-makers:several countries set a specific goal in

their e-government strategies such as“being among the first three countriesin two years.” However, the traditionalapproach to e-governmentmeasurement is no longer satisfactory,because it focuses on the availability ofonline services (e.g. the possibility topay taxes online). The results of thistraditional policy focus are notparticularly encouraging: theseservices are still very little used, andthere is little evidence of the muchexpected radical change in thebureaucratic culture of the publicadministration, which was supposed tobecome more efficient and customer-oriented through IT investment.

In fact, raising the issue of a newbenchmarking approach points to thewider need for a new e-governmentvision, which focuses on the values ofcommunication and information –something like an e-government 2.0vision. If putting services online wasthe “flagship goal” of e-governmentpolicy in the web 1.0 era, what policypriority will play a similar role in theWeb 2.0 era?

Measuring E-Government 2.0By David Osimo Tech4i2 ltd

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We argue that just as the flagship goalof e-government has been until now“making services available online,” thenew flagship goal should betransparency, “making public dataavailable for reuse.”

The most successful web 2.0 initiativesin the public field—such asfarmsubsidy.org andtheyworkforyou.org in the EU,everyblock.com and the variousinitiatives of the Sunlight Foundation inthe US—are built on reusinggovernment data in order to enhancetransparency and accountability ofgovernment. One of the main barriersto a wider diffusion of such initiativesis the lack of available and easilyreusable data. Too much time is spentscraping and cleaning public data inorder to make it usable. In December2007, 30 open-government advocatesspelled key requirements forgovernment data which emphasizedthe need for easily accessible,machine-processable and highlyreusable data. This would dramaticallyreduce the barriers to developing web-based applications that bring socialvalue, as it has been recently shown bythe appsfordemocracy.org initiative.

Web 2.0 applications are particularlygood at making data easy to

understand and meaningful. Forexample, through visualization tools,government can no longer hide behindanalysis and charts they themselvesprovide. Only reusable data maketransparency a reality because theyenable new intermediaries to makesense of public data and openlydiscuss them.

Reusable data are important becausethey change the incentives ofgovernment behaviour. The publicity ofcitizens’ feedback induces civilservants to be more responsive tocitizens. The visualization of votingbehaviour of politicians makes themmore responsive to voters.

Traditional e-government initiativesrequire cultural change to generate apositive change. Web 2.0 applicationscreate cultural change by altering theincentives behind governmentbehaviour. Moreover, the expenditure tomake public data available is muchsmaller than the investment to makeservices available online.

We propose a new approach tomeasurement of e-government, which,rather than measuring the availabilityof online services, measures theavailability of reusable and machine-processable data.

The proposal tries to combine thesimplicity and feasibility of the EUapproach with the new values of Web2.0. It identifies a limited set of ¨basicpublic data¨ and it proposes 4 stages ofdata availability.

The key benefit of this approach is thatnot only does it provide a way tomonitor the degree of transparency ofdifferent governments, but also itcreates a peer-pressure mechanismtowards the publication of reusabledata. It provides a clear roadmap topolicy-makers where the publication ofreusable, machine processable data isthe ultimate goal of e-government.

Further work is needed to definepriority data, refine the stages and theappropriate format of data, and pilotthe methodology. However, consistentwith the Web 2.0 approach, thismeasurement does not have to beimplemented by government. It is quiteeasy to imagine a crowdsourcingscenario, where an NGO provides anonline, free data-collection tool,through which citizens can inputinformation on the availability ofreusable data on the website of theirmunicipality. n

David Osimo is a managing partner ofTech4i2 ltd. For additional informationcontact david.osimo@gmail.com.

Benchmarking e-government 2.0

Phase 1

Select 20 types of basic public data such as:• beneficiaries of public funding (agriculture, research, industry etc); • draft legislation; • MPs votes • party donations • planning applications; • air pollution data • citizens feedback / satisfaction surveys results• procurement contract assigned

Phase 2

For each type, assess to what extent these data are available on the web:0 (no information available)1 (description of the procedure to obtain the information through

Freedom of Information) 2 (information available in non reusable, non-machine

readable format) 3 (information available in reusable and machine processable format

such as xml , csv)

Phase 3 Compute “data availability” scores for each country based on anaverage the scores for each type of data.

Phase 4 Compare the average scores for the countries being benchmarked anddevelop international rankings.

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The December 2006 changes tothe Federal Rules of CivilProcedure, which introduced the

term “electronically storedinformation,” are transforming the wayfederal court litigation is beingpracticed in the United States. Inliterally hundreds of publisheddecisions, courts are applying greaterscrutiny to electronically storedinformation, concentrating on howelectronic forms of documents andrecords will be preserved, formatted,searched, and produced in the contextof the particular case. For the publicsector, this is not just the sound ofdistant thunder. Increasingly, federalagencies are being required to confronthow their electronic records will beproduced in litigation.

Brave New World, Part 1: In adecision dated January 6, 2009, the U.S.Court of Appeals for the District ofColumbia affirmed a finding ofcontempt against The Office of FederalHousing Enterprise Oversight, in largepart due to the agency’s failure to meetstipulated-to deadlines in e-discovery.The agency had committed toundertaking an “appropriate search” ofdisaster-recovery backup tapes fordocuments. It was an agreement toproduce non-privileged documentsfound responsive to 400 overly-broadkeyword search terms, where theproduction set consisted of 660,000recovered documents that needed tobe, but could not be, reviewed in time.The Court of Appeals was not moved torelieve the agency of its contemptcitation, despite the fact that it hadspent $ 6 million, or more than 9percentof its total annual budget in connectionwith conducting the search. See In reFannie Mae Litigation, 2009 WL 21528(D.C. Cir.), available athttp://pacer.cad.c..uscourts.gov/common/opinions/ 200901.htm.

Brave New World, Part 2: In a civilrights class action brought against theImmigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) Division of the U.S. Departmentof Homeland Security, a federal districtcourt in Manhattan considered atlength the discoverability of at leastthree types of “metadata” associatedwith ICE records.These are:“substantive”metadata consistingof textualmodifications todocuments andeditorial commentsembedded withindocuments that areretained by theproprietary softwareand retrievable byend users; “system”metadata, consistingof date and time ofcreation ofdocuments or when documents weremodified, including material that mighthave been deleted by the creator of thedocument; and “embedded” metadata,consisting of spreadsheet formulas,hidden columns, and hyperlinks. Thegovernment largely prevailed on atechnicality, due to plaintiffs’ failure totimely raise the metadata issue:although the next set of class actionplaintiffs almost assuredly won’t bemaking that same mistake. See Aguilarv. ICE Division of the U.S. Dep’t ofHomeland Security, 2008 WL 5062700(S.D.N.Y. Nov. 21, 2008).

Each new e-discovery ruling consists ofa wake up call to the federal agencyinvolved. In these and similar cases,agencies come to realize (usually, afterthe fact), that they must get a betterhandle on the downside risk posed by afailure to be prepared for e-discovery.Today, federal courts seriously

entertaining requiring (a) theproduction of electronic versions ofrecords with associated “metadata,”even if hard copies exist in “official”recordkeeping systems, and/or (b)expedited searches of hundreds ofthousands or millions of e-mails,including from backup tapes, even ifsuch media and systems are not set upto handle that kind of demand. Ofcourse, the government retains viableaffirmative defenses against trulyunreasonable and burdensomelitigation search and productiondemands, as well it should. But federalagencies are whistling past thegraveyard if they believe that existingforms of recordkeeping remain

adequate in the face of these newexternal realities.

E-discovery places in sharp relief thepresent-day Achilles heel of “e-government,” namely: while virtually alldesktop government records are borndigital, only a small percentage end upbeing “preserved” in a electronicrecordkeeping system approved by theNational Archives and RecordsAdministration (NARA), pursuant tothe Federal Records Act. Fewagencies have switched to managinginformation electronically in a mannerconsistent with the NARA-endorsedstandard for electronic recordkeeping.The vast majority of agencies insteadare still relying on legacy recordsschedules that assume hard copyprintouts of e-mail, word processing,and other applications suffice as theofficial records of the agency. Little or

E-discovery, Transparency and Culture ChangeBy Jason R. Baron, Esq.

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no attention is being paid to preservingin a coherent, uniform, and consistentfashion potentially large numbers ofelectronic communications onotherwise highly networked systemsthat constitute long-term temporary orpermanent federal records. As aconsequence, government agencies areat least two steps behind whenconfronted with a serious andsophisticated e-discovery demand.They routinely have trouble collectingand preserving records in their native,proprietary form (with metadata), andthey have trouble searching them in areasonable way – especially if they mustrely on the enormous expense ofrestoring disaster-recovery backuptapes to do so.

The “print-to-paper” world ofgovernment recordkeeping hascontinued to survive the ElectronicFreedom of Information Act, theGovernment Paperwork EliminationAct, the E-Government Act, and a hostof similar statutes. With limitedexceptions, federal agencies generallyhave failed to adopt modern, efficientmeans of preserving e-mail and otherforms of unstructured electronicrecords on the desktop, in a mannerthat upholds the highest ideals of therecordkeeping laws.

Ironically, the place in governmentgenerating the most public controversyfor flaws in its recordkeeping system,namely the White House, actually hasremained comparatively ahead of thecurve. Notwithstanding allegations of“missing” e-mail, approximately 32million Clinton e-mail records, and nowon the order of ten times that amount ofBush 43 e-mail records, have beenpreserved in electronic form under thePresidential Records Act and theFederal Records Act.

No other place in government has sofar approached this volume ofwholesale e-mail capture under thepublic records laws, although somehave begun to contemplate the idea of“e-mail archiving,” which holds out thepromise of a “quick fix” to litigationrisk, especially from an IT perspective,where the agency “just” saveseverything. Such technologies remove

e-mail from the mail server to manageit in a central location, without much orany effort on the part of individualusers. Agencies considering e-mailarchiving without also thinking throughits records management implicationsexchange short-term litigation risk interms of deleted information, for theexpense and attendant risk associatedwith building up huge, unstructureddata collections that cannot beadequately managed or searched. Theadoption of e-mail archiving combinedwith appropriate records managementcontrols and filters may well be aconstructive step forward, however.Agencies moving toward the adoptionof such new technologies should, in myview, be applauded in thinking outsidethe present “only hard copies areofficial records” box. For additionalguidance, see NARA Bulletin 2008-05(Guidance concerning the use of e-mailarchiving applications to store e-mail),available athttp://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2008/2008-05.html.

The business case for adoptingelectronic recordkeeping should beapparent. E-discovery increases risksexponentially for agencies that rely onpaper, on backup tapes, and on endusers to respond to discoveryobligations. Agencies must begin totreat information as critical assets tobe managed strategically, whichincreasingly will mean managinginformation electronically. They shouldbe working to transform currentbusiness practices to truly embrace e-government in cradle-to-graveworkflow processes, from recordcreation through ultimate disposition.

My six prescriptions for change includefederal agencies:

• Committing to electronicrecordkeeping and/or e-mailarchiving with records managementcontrols in place;

• Embracing preventive measures inthe form of ad hoc, interdisciplinarygroups of professionals (recordsofficers, attorneys, CIOs and IT staff,and senior executives), meeting todiscuss the future e-discovery risks

each agency faces;

• Improving their baseline knowledgemanagement of their owninformation assets, starting withinventorying and/or data mapping allagency ESI repositories,applications, and platforms inanticipation of discovery about thosevery subjects;

• Changing workflow to supportelectronic business processes;

• Updating legacy records schedulesand ensuring that unscheduledelectronic records (in the form ofdatabases or on networkapplications) are properly scheduled;and

• Appointing a “knowledge counsel”who will be the “go to” person ineach headquarters and regionalcomponent of a General Counsel’s orSolicitor’s office, who would functionas a clearinghouse and repository ofinformation on the IT andrecordkeeping practices of theagency.

Although agencies could probablycontinue to live in a world of paperrecordkeeping practices absent e-discovery, e-discovery is and will mostassuredly continue to be a driver ofculture change. How many morelitigation shocks to the system shouldthe federal government take beforeagencies understand the value ofbetter, more automated processes forthe long-term maintenance of federalrecords, so as to ensure bettertransparency in the form of enhancedaccess? The world awaits our collectiveanswer, and if none is forthcoming,parties certainly won’t be reticent aboutfiling additional lawsuits demandinggreater and more costly disclosures ofthe government’s electronic records. n

Jason R. Baron is Director of Litigation atthe National Archives and RecordsAdministration. The statements expressedin this article are the author’s personalviews and do not purport to represent thepositions taken by NARA or any othercomponent of the federal government. Foradditional information contactJason.baron@nara.gov.

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Ballooning budget deficits. Outof control spending. Highertaxes. Fewer services. Rightly

or wrongly, citizens associate theseissues with government finance at atime when governments at all levelsface increasing challenges andtighter-than-ever budgets.

Last year, the Association ofGovernment Accountants (AGA)commissioned a survey to determinewhether citizens are satisfied withtheir governments. The objective ofthis first survey was to establish abaseline understanding of publicattitudes, concerning transparencyand accountability progress—or thelack of it—which could be trackedsemi-annually. We were not surprisedto learn they are deeply dissatisfiedwith the lack of information comingfrom their federal, state and localgovernments.

Of 1,652 citizens surveyed by HarrisInteractive, 89 percent said that, astaxpayers, they are entitled totransparent financial managementinformation, and 57 percent said thatgovernment has an obligation toprovide it. They further indicated thatgovernment is failing to meet itsfinancial management reportingneeds, and that poor performance hascreated a problem of trust betweenresidents and their governments. Thesurvey showed that governmentsneed innovative means ofcommunication to overcome thosechallenges. In short, the surveyuncovered a significant “expectationsgap” between what the citizens wantfrom their government and whatthey’re getting.

Even before we commissioned the

survey, AGA had responded to thedearth of information available tocitizens by encouraging governmentsacross the country to produce four-page Citizen-Centric Reports. Thereports allow governments to producea snapshot containing the informationcitizens want and need in an easilyunderstood, visually appealing format.

The suggested format showscommunity information—such aspopulation figures, regionalcharacteristics and government goalsfor the community—on the first page,and the second page presents aperformance report on key missionsand service. The third page detailscost and revenue information, and the

AGA Opens the Doors of Government to the CitizensBy Relmond Van Daniker, DBA, CPAExecutive DirectorAssociation of Government Accountants

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The State of Maryland’s 4-page Citizen-Centric Report.

fourth looks forward to the yearahead.

AGA believes that these reports willmake governments more accountableto their citizens, and will helpAmericans become better educatedand better able to participate ingovernment activities.

The AGA Citizen-CentricGovernment Reporting Initiative issteadily expanding. The U.S.Departments of the Interior andDefense, as well as the U.S. CoastGuard, have produced reports at thefederal level. Oregon, Nevada,Tennessee, South Carolina andWashington and cities and countiessuch as the District of Columbia,Saco, ME, Tallahassee, FL, Portland,OR, Bellevue, WA, and Blount County,TN, have produced Citizen-CentricReports. Many others are in theworks.

AGA now offers a free Certificate ofExcellence in Citizen-CentricReporting to recognize entities thatprepare and distribute high-qualityCitizen-Centric Reports. To be eligiblefor the certificate, governments mustmeet high standards of content, visualappeal, readability, distribution andtimeliness in reporting as outlinedbelow by our guidelines.

The following elements must beincluded in the report to be eligible forthe Certificate of Excellence:

1. How the entity is organized/-operates (items such as visionstatement and strategic goals)

2. Key accomplishments surroundingkey missions and service and/oralong with selected performancemeasures.

3. Bar and/or pie charts to displayrevenues and expenses.

4. Statements such as: Anindependent audit was conducted,resulting in a clean audit opinion.Complete financial informationcan be found at www.xyz.gov.

5. Future challenges affecting theentity.

6. Statements such as: We want tohear from you. Do you like thisreport? Do you believe it shouldinclude any other information?Please let us know by contactingxxx.

7. Report is ‘free’ of technicalaccounting language.

8. Report incorporates pictures andother graphics to make it visuallyappealing.

9. Report has been distributed(hard.c.opy, posted to websiteand/or posted in newspaper)

10. Report is issued in a timely mannerfollowing the close of the entity’sfiscal year:

a. First-year report submitted toAGA: must be within six months

b. Second-year report submittedto AGA: must be within fivemonths

c. Third-year report submitted toAGA: must be within four months

d. Fourth-year and beyond reportsubmitted to AGA: must be withinthree months

Citizen-Centric Reports represent thefuture of government financialreporting. This program has become a

hallmark of AGA’s effort to advancegovernment accountability at alllevels by making government moreaccessible to the people it serves—the taxpaying public.

In addition to this initiative, AGAoffers a well-respected CertifiedGovernment Financial Managerdesignation, which recognizes theunique skills and experiencesrequired to succeed in today’sgovernment finance environment.Also in keeping with our efforts toadvance government accountability,we reward outstanding Performanceand Accountability Reports (PARs) atthe federal level, and Service Effortsand Accomplishments Reportsproduced by state and localgovernments.

AGA provides a wide array of trainingcourses to help government financeprofessionals remain up-to-date andrelevant as they provide theinformation decision-makers needeach day. Without timely, reliable,efficient financial details, programmanagers can’t succeed. Ourmembers are on the front lines of theeffort to ensure this information isreadily available.

We’re making strides in our effort toopen the doors of government to thecitizens. They pay the bills, so it’s onlyfair that they know where the moneygoes, what they got for it and that it’sbeing managed properly. That’s whywe also recommend that governmentsinclude information about theirfinancial statement audits, whichprovide another layer ofaccountability. n

For more information about AGA visitwww.agacgfm.org.

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Shedding Light on Corruption

Itis late in the morning as M. Ramaiah,55, a farmer and father of three,

stands straight and still, his eyes fixedon a computer screen in front of him.He waits patiently as the computerindicates that the printing process hasbegun. Shortly afterwards, he receivesa neatly printed document. The piece ofpaper in his hands states that he ownsa small plot of land near Ittamadu, avillage located some 50 kilometers fromBangalore, the information technologycapital of India.

In Bangalore, the huge growth of theinformation technology industry hasattracted an influx of clients fromaround the world—multinationalcompanies taking advantage of lowwages, low maintenance costs, andstate-of-the-art technology. But outsidethe city, in the rest of the state ofKarnataka, it’s a different story.

Agriculture still plays a vital role in theeconomy of this state, which has anarea equal in size to the UnitedKingdom and a population twice that ofAustralia.

The contrast between rural Karnatakaand technology-driven Bangalorecouldn’t be sharper. Could technologybe the missing link, capable of bringingdevelopment to the villages and theirmillions of residents?

The answer is not completely clear. Butwhat is sure is that technology, throughas simple a means as computerizedland ownership records, is providingthese farmers with a measure ofsecurity and peace of mind they did notpreviously have.

A Vital Record Agriculture accounts for about 28

percent of Karnataka’s domesticproduct and remains the largest sourceof employment in the state. To increasefarm incomes and empower localfarmers, land ownership is essential.And land ownership, to beacknowledged, must be documented.Ironically enough, the most preciouspossession a poor illiterate farmer mayhave, next to his land, is the writtenland record that safeguards his rightsas legal owner. Land records are vitaldocuments for both farmers and thegovernment, used to prove ownershipand required for numerousadministrative functions as well. Landrecords are needed three times a yearto secure crop loans; they are also usedfor verification and for access topensions and various other governmentprograms.

These records form the basis for

India: Revolutionizing Land RecordsWorld Bank

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assignment and Putting land recordsonline means easy access to vitalinformation for settlement of land titlesand must stand up under legal scrutiny.But for 200 years, the responsibility ofmaintaining land ownership recordshas been under the tight control of apowerful minority of villageaccountants.

Bhoomi In the local language of Karnataka,bhoomi means land. Bhoomi is also thename given to a groundbreaking pieceof software created to computerize 20million land records in the state. Themanual upkeep of land records beforeBhoomi provided ample latitude fortampering, exploitation, andharassment from powerful vestedinterests. Those who suffered the mostfrom this system were the small andmarginal farmers who spent all of theirmeager resources fighting to keep theirlands, bribing and cajoling villageofficials in order to obtain a record.Unfortunately, in all too many cases,these farmers would lose not just theirland, but also their faith in the conceptof justice.

Before Bhoomi, over 9,000 villageaccountants maintained 20 millionrecords manually. The subdistrictoffices, such as Ramanagaram’s, rarelyreceived any copies of the records thatwere manually updated on the fields.Thus, a virtual monopoly over theserecords evolved—along with aseemingly limitless opportunity forcorruption and fraud, not to mentionerror and inefficiency.

Bhoomi has changed all that. NotesDeepa Narayan, a senior advisor for theWorld Bank, “It is telling that all of uscould recall family conflicts over landrecords because of the high discretion”of land recording officials. WithBhoomi, 20 million land records for 6.7million farmers in 177 subdistricts havebeen computerized in the state ofKarnataka.

Records that used to take weeks, oreven months, to obtain are nowpromptly available. For instance, itcould take up to six months for a so-

called “mutation record,” which isneeded if a farmer wants to sell land orbuy a plot of land elsewhere, to bedelivered to the farmer. The mutationprocess is now completed in 45 days.

Besides these efficiency improvements,Bhoomi’s important safeguard features,such as its biometric logon system,help ensure against fraud. The logonsystem is used to authenticate—through their fingerprints—the villageaccountants and other administrativepersonnel who access Bhoomi. Eachvillage accountant must befingerprinted in order to have access tothe machine where the database isstored; this system also creates arecord of who was the last person toaccess the deeds. The biometric logonsystem has thus virtually eliminated theopportunity for corruption and fraud.

Yesterday and Today G. Venkatanaraiah, 40, a poor farmerfrom the small village ofGundhatherhalli, located about 14kilometers from Ramanagaram, in ruralBangalore, owns a 2.5-acre plot of land.He came to the district office today toget a printout of his land record. G.Venkatanaraiah is a small man, withdeep, dark eyes and an expressivesmile. As he approaches the Bhoomikiosk, a small group of villagerssurround him, interested in seeing whatthe novelty is all about.

Thanks to the Bhoomi program, G.Venkatanaraiah is able to print his landrecord in less than five minutes. Withthis record, he hopes to get a loan topurchase fertilizers. The quality of hisland is not very good, but he can stillgrow ragi—a grain similar inconsistency to bulgur that is one of thestaple foods of Karnataka—and thegrain jowhar in enough quantities tofeed him, his wife, and their two sons.The leftovers, together with somemangos from his plot, he will sell inRamanagaram.

Before Bhoomi, G. Venkatanaraiah hadto pursue village accountants forsometimes up to one week in order toget a land record. Moreover, he used tohave to pay anywhere from 5 to 50

rupees to prove that he owned his smallplot of land. “First, we had to search forthe officials, and then wait for them tohear our pleas. Now, within a fewminutes and by paying only 15 rupees,we are able to get our land deeds in notime.”

Fair User Fee G. Venkatanaraiah, like other Bhoomiusers, doesn’t begrudge the 15 rupees.That’s because another successfulfeature of the computerized system hasbeen its introduction of a standard userfee.

According to G. Satyavathi, deputysecretary for E-governance inKarnataka, farmers do not mind payingthis fee because they are satisfied withthe system. Before, the price for a landrecord was at the individual villageaccountant’s discretion. Further,revenue collection from land recordsrarely made it back to the state coffers.With Bhoomi, on the other hand,farmers are pleased with the qualityand consistency of the service, thegovernment has increased its revenues,and the system’s sustainability isensured.

In the Ramanagaram district office, forinstance, over 62,000 records have beenissued since Bhoomi’s introduction in2001, and the state has collected over960,000 rupees.

M. Ramaiah came to Ramanagaramtoday to get a printout of his land title inpreparation for his son’s upcomingmarriage. Because of the marriage, heneeds proof of land ownership. Also, hewants to know how much land heactually owns. He is concerned that,because of his son’s marriage, therewill be a split in the family and that hiswife and daughters could lose theirrights to the land.

Bhoomi’s efficiency means he canfocus on business rather than onlogistics. “The system is easy, and I amvery satisfied. Before, it would havetaken me three to four days to locatethe village accountant—and theyalways changed the price for thecertificate. Now I pay 15 rupees every

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time.” When asked if M. Ramiahreceives a print out of his landthe pricewas too steep, M. Ramaiah smiled andsaid no. He too had been a record.“Nowthey cannot take my land away.”victimof village accountants’ greed before.

Brain Child of a Civil Servant It was Rajeev Chawla, a governmentcivil servant working at the NationalInformatics Center in Bangalore, whorecognized the need to find alternativesfor land-record reform. The stategovernment supported Chawla as hedesigned, and then put into action, aproject to put all the local land recordsinto a central computer.

The Bhoomi system soon followed.Completely designed in-house by theNational Informatics Center, Bhoomifeatures touch screen kiosks, since

these do not require high literacy skillson the part of users seeking to accesstheir records.

Lessons From a Model System Today, 10 million computerized recordsare issued every year in Karnataka—anachievement other Indian states envy.Notes Sathayavathi, Karnataka’s E-governance deputy, “Here is asuccessful project which has shown tothe people and the citizens of this statethat, yes, it should be scalable to otherstates—and why not to othercountries? It’s a good model, and it isdelivering services. I think this is arevolution in land records.”

With the computerization of land titles,the state is now able to take furthersteps toward keeping an onlinedatabase and scrutinizing the

agricultural sector more closely. Manylessons are being learned through thisnew ability to analyze ownership trends.One of the things that Bhoomi was ableto demonstrate in quantifiable termswas the huge disparity in landownership between the men andwomen of Karnataka. According to therecords, only 10 percent of the state’sland belongs to female farmers.

Another lesson is that informationtechnology can play a powerful role inpoverty reduction, but that its use andpotential have been largely overlooked.Technology that increases poorpeople’s access to information whetherof markets or services, andcomputerization that reduces thediscretion of service providers, can bepowerful tools for self-empowermentand poverty reduction.

It is about noon when M. Ramaiahleaves the Bhoomi kiosk inRamanagaram. He folds the newlyprinted land record neatly and puts it inthe front pocket of his shirt. “They willnot take my land away now,” he says, ashe climbs on a small, rusting bike,which was leaning against the wall, andstarts to ride back home. In thedistance, he stops to catch his breath,and looks back. With a smile on hisface, he waves. n

For more information about this and otherDevelopment 360 stories,please contactAna Luna Barrosatalunabarros@worldbank.org.

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In the Niger Delta of West Africa, thepoorest communities live atop oiland gas deposits that have

generated over $600 billion in oilrevenues over the past five decades.Though Nigeria’s resource wealth couldspearhead development across theregion—roads, schools, hospitals, andmodernized technologicalinfrastructure. For most Nigeriansquality of life has not improved butdeteriorated. In the Niger Delta inparticular, the population faces newdiseases, rampant pollution thatundercuts traditional livelihoods suchas fishing, and endemic corruption thathas helped engender a violentinsurgency. Poverty prevails, with 90percent of the population surviving on

less than two dollars per day as theylive and work next to the oil pipelinesthat carry vast wealth through theirvillages.

This paradox of poverty amidst plenty isoften referred to as the “resourcecurse”—the too-common dilemma ofresource-rich countries that remainunderdeveloped, impoverished, andplagued by corrupt and conflict, despitethe extractive resource wealth thatcould vastly improve their standard ofliving.

Angola, projected to become one of thehighest-earning oil producing countriesin Africa over the next several decades,has long been a poster country for theresource curse, due to its notoriously

opaque government, and the role oiland diamond revenues played infunding the country’s destructive 27-year civil war. In recent years, theAngolan government has begun to takesome important steps to introducerevenue and expenditure transparencyinto the public management of itspetroleum and mineral wealth,including new elections and thepublication of budgets. However, thereforms have been incomplete, andAngola’s scores on both corruption andhuman development indicators aresome of the lowest in the world.

The culprit is often vast amounts ofmoney changing hands outside of thepublic eye. The key to transformingdevelopment, wealth and stability inresource rich countries is makingtransparency and accountability theshared concern of all parties engagedin the extractive industries:governments, companies and civilsociety alike.

Many Americans may be aware of thedisparity between the potential andreality of development in resource richcountries, but fewer understand the

Fighting Corruption, While Building Energy SecurityBy Kathryn JoyceRevenue Watch Institute

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role that the United States can play inpromoting transparency worldwide—and why it is fitting that the U.S., one ofthe world’s leading resource consumersand the destination of 20 percent ofNigerian oil alone, should take a leadingrole in this promotion.

In the last Congress, a bill wasintroduced in the U.S. House that wouldbolster transparency and accountabilityin the oil, gas, and mining industriesdramatically. The Extractive IndustriesTransparency Disclosure (EITD) Actsponsored by Chairman Barney Frankof the Financial Services Committeemandates that all domestic and foreigncompanies registered with theSecurities and Exchange Commission(SEC) report their payments togovernments for any extractive industryactivity.

Sarah Pray of the Publish What You PayU.S. coalition, part of an internationalcoalition on the forefront of thetransparency movement, comparestoday’s EITD act to an older example ofthe U.S. taking on corruption. In the1970s, the Foreign Corrupt PracticesAct (FCPA) brought sweeping reformof corrupt activities by Americancompanies operating abroad, taking ona culture of corruption so pervasive thatsome countries allowed tax deductionsfor bribes. Then, says Pray, the UnitedStates took the lead then because itwas the right thing to do. Today, PublishWhat You Pay is leading the call for theEITD Act, along with the RevenueWatch Institute and many othercoalition members. Pray says that newtransparency in extractives revenuesaround the world will have the samelong-term benefits as the FCPA hashad, by helping to make sure thatcorrupt governments do not withhold ormismanage extractive revenues thatcould help build and sustain theircountries.

Just as the U.S. positively wielded itseconomic influence in 1977 to begin tochange business practices around theworld, today it is in a position to drivethe transparency agenda in the globaloil and mining sectors, by requiringthose companies under the jurisdictionof the SEC from these sectors to

behave with greater transparencywherever they operate.

The global transparency movement hasbeen growing for some years,particularly since the introduction in2002 of the voluntary Extractive IndustryTransparency Initiative (EITI), whichstandardizes a process forgovernments to measure and improvetheir disclosure practices for revenuesfrom extractive companies. The broadsupport this initiative enjoys fromcompanies, the Organization forEconomic Co-operation andDevelopment, as well as resource richexporting countries, signals thatincreasing transparency is not just aconcern for low-income countries.

The movement is beginning to take offin the United States as well. SenatorRichard Lugar, ranking member of theSenate Foreign Relations Committeeand a co-sponsor of the EITD Act,released a report on the resource cursein October 2008 entitled “ThePetroleum and Poverty Paradox:Assessing U.S. and InternationalCommunity Efforts to Fight theResource Curse.” The report calls forthe U.S. to join the EITI and submit theInterior Department’s royalty collectionto outside audit; to assist resource-richcountries in managing their newrevenues; and to “back theirtransparency words with deeds,” byrequiring that extractive companiespublish their payments country-by-country, as the EITD Act requires.

Sarah Pray concurs with this “practicewhat you preach” message. “If we'reencouraging other countries toimplement the EITI, we should have alaw on our books, and also implementEITI ourselves.” Not only would thisboost U.S. credibility in its own calls fortransparency around the world, and incountries whose stability is linked toU.S. interests, but it would also be aboon in countries where moretransparent behavior by U.S.companies would improve U.S.diplomatic efforts and reputation.“These companies are ourambassadors abroad. How they dobusiness reflects on the U.S.” The billwould cover 90 percent of the top 50

internationally operating oil companies,including most major non-UScompanies, reducing the risk that moretransparent American companieswould be put at a competitivedisadvantage by their compliance. Asone of the largest consumers of othercountries’ extractive resources, the U.S.is invariably affected by the businessstandards of oil-producing countries.“Like it or not, we have a role to play.”

A growing number of members ofCongress appear to share this attitude.Since its introduction in 2008, the EITDAct picked up 42 sponsors in the Houseand Senate, following the determinedwork of Publish What You Pay, RevenueWatch, Global Witness, OxfamAmerica and many other coalitionmembers. The Senate version of the billwas sponsored by New York SenatorCharles Schumer.

In September, Revenue Watch boardmembers, partners and authorstestified in support of the bill at twoSenate hearings. “When major oilproducing countries are hobbled by anunstable business environment, theU.S. economy and our energy securitysuffer,” Revenue Watch Director KarenLissakers testified. “Information is thelifeblood of healthy markets and ofhealthy political systems, and the EITDAct will contribute to both.”

With the findings of the Lugar reportand a new incoming administration,Revenue Watch and the Publish WhatYou Pay coalition are optimistic aboutthe passage of the EITD Act in 2009. Wewill continue to promote the standardsof transparency and accountability thatthe bill represents. n

The Revenue Watch Institute(www.revenuewatch.org) is a non-profitpolicy institute and grantmakingorganization that promotes the responsiblemanagement of oil, gas and mineralresources for the public good.

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In 1973, America was shocked byrevelations first published in thepages of the Washington Post that

the President of the United States hadbeen implicated in activities meant toconsolidate power and undermine anypolitical opposition. Earlier in ournation’s history, President Warren G.Harding’s administration was rockedby dark allegations surrounding oilleases and corruption that becameknown as the Teapot Dome scandal.Most recently, allegations of IllinoisGovernor Rod Blagojevich trying to“sell” President Obama’s vacantSenate seat led to the governor’sremoval from office.

Big and small, reports of instances ofwrongdoing, waste, and favoritismabound through history andcontemporary news reports. Thepublic demands transparency andaccountability in government—butwhat does that mean? And how do weachieve it?

While corruption is easy to define androot out, “waste” is not. Oneobserver’s waste may be another’svital effort; the politics of prioritizationmake such discussions circular. Butpublic trust that the best availablesolutions are arrived at should bemore empirically quantifiable. How tomake information available and usableis just one challenge.

In October 2008, the NationalElectronic Commerce CoordinatingCouncil (eC3) hosted a symposium inWashington, D.C.. The purpose of thesymposium was to give better shapeto the buzzword “transparency.” Whatdoes it and what should it mean topublic officials? And how can it be aneffective tool for the public?

The good news is that technology andtelecommunications make it easierthan ever for the public to extractinformation about budgets, programsand the people who administer them.Nonetheless, statutory provisions thatanchor the public’s access togovernment activities remain mired instandards from a different time. Forexample, most public-notice laws werewritten in times when not every towneven had ready access to newspapers,so that posting of notices ofgovernment meetings and warrantsfor government action were onlyrequired to be posted in “conspicuousplaces,” probably the front door of thelocal church or town hall. Today, manystates require posting notices oflegislative hearings and agencyrulemaking proposals in newspaperlegal notice sections which rarelyattract much public attention. Suchrequirements—and the politicaladherence to them—represent ananachronistic resignation of publicennui to governmental proceedings,and the political advantages thatoffers bureaucrats.

(To keep this in the proper context, thiswas common in New England incolonial times, and many of theserequirements are still on the books.When the author was the chair of thelocal city party committee, he wasrequired—by law—to post the notice ofthe party caucus on the town bulletinboard as well as in the local newspapertwo weeks in advance of the caucus. Ifhe wanted anyone to attend, however,he had to call people.)

The public, policy advocates, andlawmakers who seek to modernizepublic participation and thetransparency that is required to inform

the public and make their participationmeaningful are left with a number ofdisadvantages.

For the policymaker, one key questionis what exactly it is the public isinterested in. While modern noticesand availability of financialinformation, campaign financedisclosures, budget documents,reports from watchdogs, and otherinformation is readily available, for thepublic accessing such information it’sall very much like drinking from a firehose.

Secondly, there is the element of thepublic that inherently distrusts anygovernment information, from anysource—or worse, that element ofsociety that simply doesn’t care.Nonetheless, those citizens deserveaccountability too, and whether theycome to trust the process or theproduct will largely hinge on howusable and verifiable information theyreceive is.

Finally, once the information isaggregated and made available,someone has to use it. Forpolicymakers this may be moreintuitive, but is no more common thanthe utilization of information aboutprograms and budgets by the generalpublic. Thus policymakers rely on“common sense” and “lifeexperience” instead of historical data,bringing the whole matter around fullcircle.

Tricky, too, is context. Raw data onsalaries of public officials, forexample, is often tasty fodder forbloggers and watchdogs, but suchspreadsheets almost never includeeven a summary sentence of whatthose officials are responsible for, or

Through a Glass, DarklyWhat do we mean by transparency in government?By Matthew DunlapSecretary of StateState of Maine

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what would be comparable in theprivate sector. But contextualizinginformation is also controlling it, andmany public officials are reluctant toeditorialize or justify their actions to awary public, seeking instead to avoid afight.

But the public also has aresponsibility, too, and there’s thepolitical hair trigger. When the publicis outraged, there’s little room forcivics lessons, especially coming fromgovernment officials. If governmentofficials and agencies establishcollaborative relationships withwatchdog groups and respond readilyto requests for information, problemscan usually be quickly avoided. Afterall, people just want honest answersto their questions.

Attaining such answers is nowavailable in more vectors than at anytime in history. With blogs, onlinechatrooms, wikis, and electronicforums, policymakers and the public

have greater opportunity than ever toshare information. Many websites arenow dedicated to examining not onlyprograms, but what is said aboutthem, and monitor for disparate factsand truthful statements. Of course,the old-fashioned public forum wherepolicymakers and administratorsanswer questions and presentinformation in person still has asignificant place in the realm oftransparent government. Any methodfor encouraging public participation isgoing to be hard work, but anyone whodoes it will testify to its effectiveness.

Perhaps the most perplexing aspect oftransparent government is the totallack of reward. People expect thattheir officials are doing the right thingand are behaving transparently, andthus offer no acknowledgement ofbest practices or for good behavior. Ina way, it’s not transparency at allpeople want; it’s assurance.Assurance that someone is manning

the watchtower, that all thesafeguards against arrogance andcorruption work. But they don’t. This isthe unsolvable problem oftransparency: it doesn’t guaranteeaccountability—only vigilance doesthat. There is no ready substitute foran engaged public, or method in lawthat assures that elected officials andthe bureaucrats who report to themwill behave in the public’s bestinterest.

Can you trust me? I ask people that allthe time. They always say yes. I’m surethey’re sincere. But I follow up withthis question: if you can really trustme, then why do we need to hold anelection every two years? n

Matt Dunlap is Secretary of State for theState of Maine and Chairman of the NationalElectronic-Commerce Coordinating Council.

One of President Obama’s firstofficial acts in office was toissue sweeping new

information policies. His directives,which single out transparency, partici-pation, and collaboration, have thepotential to generate a new era ofnetworked governance, where digitaltools empower citizens andgovernment employees to more fullyparticipate in democratic processes.

These directives, however, ifimplemented improperly, may be justas likely to create new turf battles,unwieldy mandates, uncertainty, orunnecessary layers of bureaucracy.

As government employees craft andthen follow the new technology andinformation policies of the Obamaadministration, the examples set byexperiments in data and engagementwill be among the governmentinnovators’ best new guides.

To be sure, significant coordination andguidance already come fromgovernment agencies and organiza-tions, from top-level authorities to theinsider-champions working fortechnological reform. Government’scoordinative role should only continueto grow as the new administration’scommitment becomes explicit. There’s

a limit, however, to the sort oftechnology and policy innovation thatgovernment can produce. Regulationsthat sometimes hold government backdon’t apply in the same way to non-profits, educational institutions, andbusinesses, who are learning tocatalyze government innovation fromwithout.

I am the Policy Director for just suchan organization. The SunlightFoundation, a Washington, D.C.-basednonprofit, was founded in 2006 withtransparency in government as itscentral mission. As technology’stransformative potential has alwaysbeen at the heart of our vision for anopen government, our foundationinvests heavily in the technology ofpublic understanding, building toolsthat help citizens and governmentemployees alike comprehend andinteract with government.

Much of our work has been createdwith an appreciation for the money andinfluence at the heart of our politicalsystem. Sunlight provides significant

Transparency in Government Begins OutsideBy John WonderlichProgram DirectorSunlight Foundation

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support for the Center for ResponsivePolitics, whose OpenSecrets.orgwebsite provides an unparalleled viewof money in politics. Designing withopen access and data architecture inmind, many sites like OpenSecrets.orgnow feature APIs, or ApplicationProgramming Interfaces, which allowother sites to repurpose the underlyingdata. In this way, for example, theCenter’s campaign finance data (acleaned-up version of Federal ElectionCommission data) has been integratedinto other sites, like Congresspedia orMAPLight.org.

Congresspedia is a citizen's wiki onCongress, featuring comprehensivedetails on all things congressional, andnow featuring campaign finance datagenerated from the Center’sdatabases. In a similar reuse of data,MAPLight.org combines campaigncontributions with vote tallies,uncovering suggestive patterns, wherespikes in political giving often precedeimportant legislation by only a fewdays.

The impact of nonprofit innovation canbe seen even more clearly through theexample of FedSpending.org. Withsupport from a Sunlight grant, OMBWatch created the FedSpending.orgwebsite, offering searchable access toall federal grants and contracts. Theexample set by OMB Watch was sostrong that it helped lead to the

passage of the Federal FundingAccountability and Transparency Act(often referred to in a recent politicalcampaign as Coburn-Obama). Thatlegislation created USASpending.gov,made in the precise image ofFedSpending.org. EvenFedSpending.org’s carefully craftedAPI carried over to the federal site, aclear example of the federalgovernment following the example of anon-government organization.

Legislative information is beingsimilarly reprocessed from outsideCongress. Legislative documentsfollow a complex path to most citizens’computer screens. After being drafted,they go to closed congressionaldatabases, then the Library ofCongress to be posted publicly, andthen to GovTrack.us, the primary publichub for legislative data. GovTrack.uswas created by its sole proprietor,University of Pennsylvania studentJosh Tauberer, to produce more user-friendly legislative information. Manyother sites, includingOpenCongress.org, reuse GovTrack’sdata to present a fuller view ofCongress. OpenCongress.org, anotherSunlight grantee, has created a richsocial layer on top of congressionalinformation, allowing users to track,share, and comment on bills online,adding rich explanatory content to theusually inscrutable information.

Each of these projects affects not onlythe users who employ them, but alsothe government employees who werethe original stewards of the data. Thisfeedback loop is essential to the rolethat outside actors have in helpinggovernment live up to its digitalpotential: while federal informationpolicy can be hard to affect from theoutside, the individuals who are mostintimately familiar with any system areoften the biggest champions for itsreform. In this way, just as Sunlight’swork has set a powerful standard forhow government should approach itstechnology, we also hope to empowerthe mechanics of digital democracy:new-media staffers, Webmasters,CIOs, systems administrators, andeven the occasional member ofCongress or agency head.

The better America’s visions ofaccountability, transparency, andinteractivity are connected to thepolicy-makers, journalists, and thedemocracy practitioners, the betterObama’s vision of openness can berealized. n

John Wonderlich is the Program Director forthe Sunlight Foundation, a D.C. based non-partisan, non-profit transparency advocacyorganization. For additional information,contact johnwonderlich@gmail.com or at202/742-1520.

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As Supreme Court JusticePotter Stewart said ofpornography, most of us know

government transparency when wesee it: timely, accurate, and reliableinformation made available to thepublic. And we understand whytransparency is important: it is thebasis for accountability and guardsagainst the three bureaucratic evils ofwaste, fraud and abuse.

Increasingly, however, governmentleaders recognize that solving thecomplex problems facing Americatoday will require more than simplykeeping citizens informed. Meetingchallenges like rising health carecosts, climate change and energyindependence will require a level of

collaboration that we have never seenbefore. Traditionally, governmentagencies have operated in silos –separated not only from citizens, butfrom each other, as well.Nevertheless, some have begun toreach across and outside ofgovernment to access the collectivebrainpower of organizations,stakeholders and individuals.

On his first full day in office,President Obama put government onnotice that this new, morecollaborative model can no longer beconfined to the efforts of earlyadopters. He called upon everyexecutive department and agency to“harness new technology” and makegovernment “transparent,

participatory, and collaborative.” Andnow, the real work begins.

A Good StartHitting the President’s trifecta ofgood government may be easier saidthan done – but it won’t be becausetechnology is standing in the way.

A little more than a year ago, theNational Academy of PublicAdministration launched theCollaboration Project. Thisindependent consortium ofgovernment leaders comes togetheron-line (www.collaborationproject.org)and in-person to share ideas,examples and insights aboutleveraging web 2.0 and collaborative

Beyond Transparency in GovernmentBy Jennifer L. DornPresident and CEONational Academy of Public Administration

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technology to solve government'scomplex problems.

In addition, as part of theCollaboration Project, the NationalAcademy has collected, posted andbegun to analyze more than 50examples of innovative uses ofcollaborative technology in federal,state and local government. Thesecase studies range from powerfulmashups of satellite imagery andgovernment databases, to relativelysimple forays on popular socialnetworking sites.

The Alabama Department ofHomeland Security, for example,convinced local government and non-governmental stakeholdersthroughout the state to overlay datathat they “owned” on acomprehensive online database ofsatellite imagery. The resultingapplication, known as VirtualAlabama, is a visualization tool thatuses an enterprise version of GoogleEarth, customized to show the state’smost critical data overlaid on maps.With the click of a mouse, firstresponders and emergency responseplanners can use Virtual Alabama toview three-dimensional models ofschools, bridges and criticalinfrastructure, overlaid on satelliteimagery and showing the locations offire hydrants, gas pipelines,hazardous chemicals, and othercritical information.

At the other end of the spectrum, theU.S. Library of Congress has tappedinto the “wisdom of the crowd”through a publicly available photo-sharing website, posting thousands ofphotos and inviting the public toprovide information, tags anddescriptions. While extending thereach of its collection to millionsacross the nation and around theglobe, the Library has also been ableto significantly enrich its photocollection without undertaking costlyand time-consuming staff research. Itnow loads an additional 50 photoseach Friday and averages about half amillion views each month.

What’s Stopping Us Now?There are two fundamentalchallenges that stand in the path ofrapid progress toward collaborativegovernment: culture and policy.

The President’s call for a new era oftransparency and collaboration will,without question, begin to break downthe cultural barriers insidegovernment that have impededprogress. As desirable as it maysound, our expectation thatgovernment agencies should act asstewards over the use anddissemination of the data they collectoften stands in the way oftransparency and collaboration.

Changing this “ownership andcontrol” culture in government will notbe a small task, especially as wereaffirm our commitment toaccountability. Government agenciesmust provide information in a formatthat allows people to engage withdata, make their own discoveries, andtell others what they have learned.“Transparency” can no longer meansimply publishing information in astatic format. Key to making progress,however, will be a commonunderstanding of when and what datamust be protected by government, andwhat data should be considered anational asset, free to be mined byanyone for any reason.

A related but potentially moredaunting obstacle is the vast numberof laws and official policies thatrestrict government’s ability to takefull advantage of new technologiesand opportunities for collaboration.Working with Collaboration Projectmembers, Fellows and staff of theNational Academy have begun todocument the myriad official“obstacles” that stand in the way. Tobe fair, most were enacted or adoptedlong before the era of web 2.0 andcould not anticipate its potential usein the work of government. They are,nonetheless, real and numerous.

For example, the Freedom ofInformation Act (FOIA) did notanticipate the emergence of iterative

media, where documents evolvecollaboratively online. How manyversions of a single page of agovernment wiki must be preservedfor potential FOIA disclosure?Similarly, when and how must instantmessage (IM) exchanges bepreserved and be subject to FOIA orother record-keeping and disclosurerequirements? It has been reportedthat the Obama White House hasbarred the use of IM, becauseattorneys believe the PresidentialRecords Act would apply, requiringpreservation and public disclosurefive years after the president leavesoffice.

Another layer of complexity is addedwhen government agencies, like theLibrary of Congress, want to create apresence on free third party sites likeFlickr, YouTube and Second Life. Canfederal agencies simply sign up, or isthis transaction subject to federalprocurement regulations? Can they“click the box” and agree to terms andconditions that bind them to state law,despite the Supremacy Clause in theU.S. Constitution?

The Promise of Generational ChangeHaving entered government in thewake of Watergate, my generation ofpublic servants strongly believed andstill believes that government shouldwork for the people. But we didn’treally understand that we also neededto work with the people.

Today, government is quicklytransitioning to a new generation ofmanagers and leaders, for whomonline collaboration is not a newfrontier but a fact of everyday life. Weowe it to them—and the citizens weserve—to recognize and embracetransparency, participation andcollaboration as essential to goodgovernment in the 21st Century. n

Jennifer Dorn is President and CEO of theNational Academy of PublicAdministration. For additional informationcontact jdorn@napawash.org.

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President Barack Obama’sremarkable showing amongmillennials (voters 18-26 years

old), who supported him by a morethan 2:1 margin, was a direct byproductof his groundbreaking effort to utilizeonline communication tools tomobilize those core supporters. Nowthe Obama administration has anopportunity to utilize similarlysophisticated Web 2.0 technologies tomake America’s governing processesmore transparent, thereby increasingthe trust of all generations in thefederal government.

The beliefs and behaviors of themillennial generation will

fundamentally reshape howgovernment policy is made and how itis administered. Millennials constantlyinteract with each other using socialnetworks. They tend to make decisionsbased on consensus, with leadershipfocused on forming and shaping thatconsensus. Since they have learned tosearch for the answer to everyquestion on the Internet, they tend notto believe in the authority of a few eliteexperts. Instead, they place their faithin the wisdom that comes from thecombined opinions of all their friends,or, by extension, the members of anetwork. These characteristics ofAmerica’s newest “civic” generationwill shift the debate of the last decade

on how best to “reinvent government”to a debate on how to invent new waysof exercising our democraticgovernance ideals.

Given millennials’ values andbehaviors and the technologies theylove, the thrust of efforts by the Obamaadministration to reshape governancein the United States will involve thecreation of open structures attemptingto maximize the number whoparticipate in policy-making.Dispersed participatory structures,such as Google or Wikipedia, arebrands millennials think of when askedto name information sources theytrust. It is from these models that

Get Ready for Wiki-GovernmentBy Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

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millennials will draw their inspirationfor reshaping America’s governingprocesses.

While Wikipedia’s open structure,complete transparency and userparticipation has made it a favoritesite for millennials, many moretraditional opinion-makers abhor thenotion of “decision-making by crowds”that the site represents. But the rapidevolution of online politics engineeredby the Obama campaign provides aninherent antidote to the problem ofunfettered aggregation and lowest-common-denominator outcomes

mentioned by many critics ofWikipedia. As one of the more famouscritics, Jaron Lanier, who coined theterm “virtual reality” in the 1980s, said,“The ecology of social media isbalanced by the presence of otherapplications such as blogs and socialnetworking where individuality andcooperation are alive and well.... Byusing a mix of social media,communities can benefit both from thewisdom of crowds and the wisdom ofindividuals.” By celebrating the use ofblogs and social networks in hisadministration as much as he did inthe campaign, President Obama canensure the success of a wiki-government approach to governance.

The first steps in the use of technologyto enable increased citizeninvolvement in policy-making, whilepreserving the constitutional role ofrepresentative legislative bodies, weretaken in the conservative, but tech-savvy, state of Utah almost two yearsago. Politicopia.com, a “virtual townsquare” was founded by Utah state

legislator Steve Urquhart as a place“where Utahans could debate issuescoming before the legislature.” It wasused to influence the policy decisionsin that state’s 2007 legislative session.Technologically, Politicopia operatedin a very “millennialist” manner, being“based on a user-controlled wikisystem that allows anyone to join thediscussion. Unlike activist groups suchas MoveOn.org, it does not push anagenda other than open discussion.”

Andrew Rasiej, founder of thePersonal Democracy Forum and astrong advocate for more openness in

government, points out an importantdifference between chat rooms andpolitical wikis. “Politicopia is more of arepository of ideas and discussionswhere issues can be debated andinformation can be added over time.”Voters leave behind “both a record andan aggregation of voices to define anissue.” Urquhart underlined the key tothe site’s success: “It only works if it’sa broad pool of people, not just techiesor one party or another.... It has to bebottom up. The people have to have thetools and ability to set the agenda.”

The political impact of the site did notbreak down along traditionalconservative/liberal lines. The onlinedebate moved the chamber in aconservative direction when itconvinced several key legislators tovote for the adoption of a schoolvoucher program that passed by onlyone vote. But it also pushed thelegislature toward a liberal decision byrejecting a proposal to have Utahdirectly challenge the Roe v. Wadeabortion ruling.

Despite its “bleeding edge” character,Politicopia.com was warmly receivedby the legislature. “It moved theneedle…it helped improve thedialogue. I think that’s what a lot of usare yearning for in politics these days,”is how founder Urquhart summed upthe experience. His legislativecolleague, Steve Sandstrom, agreed. “Ithink we’re on the verge of somethingnew…it was intelligent, thoughtful andproduced a consensus. It was prettyneat.” The result put Utah “at thevanguard of the future of Americanpolitics in the twenty-first century,”

according to Rasiej, “where town halls,policy debates and civic involvementwill happen on wikis, blogs, video-sharing and social networking sites.”Given the technological sophisticationof the Obama administration and itsdesire to inject a greater degree ofinnovation in the government’sfundamental processes, the spread ofwiki-government from this statelegislative pilot to the federalexecutive branch is inevitable.

Having become engaged inunprecedented numbers in hiselection, Americans, especiallymillennials, want to continue toparticipate in President Obama’sadministration. Wiki-government is theperfect vehicle to satisfy that desire. n

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais areco-authors of Millennial Makeover:MySpace, YouTube, and the Future ofAmerican Politics. Winograd was Directorof the National Partnership for ReinventingGovernment from 1997-2001.

While Wikipedia’s open structure, complete transparencyand user participation has made it a favorite site forMillennials, many more traditional opinion-makers

abhor the notion of “decision-making by crowds” that thesite represents.

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In ancient Athens—the model forthe democracy envisioned by theframers of our Constitution --

citizens met, face to face, in theagora—the public square—to conductbusiness, debate civic issues, anddrive the decisions of government.Gone are the days of daily meetingsat the agora. Today, citizens knowgovernment as red tape, long lines,and cold, distant bureaucracies. Thereins of government have slippedfrom “we the people” to inaccessiblegovernment officials.

The District of Columbia, however, isat the forefront of a new era ofgovernance, one in which

technological advances now allowpeople from around the worldunfettered access to theirgovernment. Through these advances,constituents can hold theirgovernment accountable from theprivacy of their own homes. TheDistrict of Columbia is bringingpeople closer to government throughcollaborative technologies like wikis,data feeds, videos and dashboards.We’re throwing open D.C.’swarehouse of public data so thateveryone—constituents,policymakers, and businesses—canmeet in a new digital public square.

The District maintains vast stores of

data on every aspect of governmentoperations, from governmentcontracts to crime statistics toeconomic development. We haveorganized these data into convenientcatalogs and live data feeds andmade them available to the generalpublic at http://data.octo.d.c..gov.Visitors to the site can findinformation on crime incidents bydate, time of day, ward, block, ormethod; details on constructionprojects by location, type ofconstruction, budget, completion dateor status; data on registered vacantproperties by ward, address, owner ortax assessment; or information on

Building the Digital Public SquareBy Vivek KundraUnited States Chief Information Officer

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businesses, such as the locations ofDistrict establishments that holdliquor licenses. Mapping technologyalso allows users to view datageographically with a single click.Using an ordinary Web browser,anyone in the world can access thisinformation.

When we first opened the doors togovernment data, people were quickto respond. Individuals andorganizations are not only viewing ourgovernment data, but are actuallyimproving upon our work by analyzing

and repurposing the information inuseful ways. One innovative D.C.resident took it upon herself to gatherpublicly-available government data onservice requests, crimes, and buildingand public space permits to create aWeb-based informationalclearinghouse site that informssoutheastern D.C. residents aboutlocal real estate development and thequality of government services. With a$1.1 million grant from the KnightFoundation, a group of veteran Webjournalists has transformed localgovernment data into an onlinecommunity news forum atEveryblock.com for the District andfor 10 other U.S. cities. Here, visitorscan plug in their zip code and find andexchange information abouteverything of interest in theirneighborhoods—local businesses andreviews, real estate listings, crimes,road construction, city service

requests, community meetings, andmore. A private entrepreneur hasassembled law enforcement data fromthe District and across the countryinto an online database, called“CrimeReports.” Visitors can getcrime data and maps by address, zipcode, and type of crime and sign upfor personalized crime alerts.

These are truly grassroots ventures.The democratization of governmentdata has revealed an enormousappetite for civic participation. We areushering in a new age of participatory

democracy, one in which citizens arein the driver’s seat when they interactwith government. Accessibility hasnever been greater, and this is just thebeginning. In the past year, theDistrict of Columbia published over200 data feeds. During the comingyear, we expect to double that.

Today, building the digital publicsquare is not just appealing, it isimperative for every government,whether municipal, state, or national.We live in the information age. Nearly1.5 billion people have access to theInternet—and they are using it inevery way. There is a worldwide digitalmarket for goods and services. Forexample, Amazon.com, founded justover a decade ago, now handles about56 million transactions a year, andEbay, founded at about the same time,now has over 275 million registeredusers. There is a growing number ofglobal social and artistic networks.

Facebook alone, founded just fouryears ago, now has over 60 millionactive users, and YouTube, a yearyounger, hosted 3 billion video viewsin a single month this year. Weresponded to these newcommunications trends by expandingD.C. Government’s presence onFacebook and posting job listings andbid solicitations on YouTube under the“D.C. Government” channel.Leveraging consumer technology inthis way allows us to reach wideraudiences at no cost to taxpayers.

Until now, government has largelybeen absent in the trend towardsworldwide exchange of informationand services. Starting here in theDistrict, we hope to demonstrate thatgovernment, too, can and must stepfully into the digital arena. That is whythe digital public square is now at theheart of our efforts to makegovernment services more effective,accessible, and transparent. Byensuring that every citizen has a frontrow seat in the digital public square,we’ll continue to return governmentinto the hands of “we, the people.” n

Vivek Kundra is the former ChiefTechnology Officer for the District ofColumbia. He has been appointed thenation’s first Chief Information Officer. Foradditional information contactRosalyn.McKine@dc.gov.

The digital public square is now at the heart of our efforts tomake government services more effective, accessible, andtransparent. By ensuring that every citizen has a front rowseat in the digital public square, we’ll continue to return

government into the hands of “we, the people.”

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The confluence of technology,demographic, social andeconomic forces is about to

force huge change in the waygovernment does business. The newfunction-rich infrastructure of Web 2.0,the emergence of social media and thedesire for greater participation on thepart of citizens is fundamentallyredesigning how government operates,what public services are provided andby whom, and how governmentsinteract and engage their citizens.

Traditionally, governments designservices and roll them out to citizenswho are expected to comply with the

terms and conditions of policy andprograms. Typically, the service is thesame for everyone. It is always linear.Outputs are the metrics for the model:how many cheques got in the mail, howmany people got back to work, howmany calls got answered. Compliancewith the design’s rules and regulationsis paramount, especially intransactional services.

The new model is not a mass-production machine. Instead, in a moreholistic fashion, policy and service aredirectly connected to outcomes.Enabled by powerful informationsystems and ongoing interactions thathelp build a profound understanding ofneeds, providers and users collaboratein creating services together. They usethe “information ecosystem” createdby Web 2.0 technologies to re-calibratethe relationship between providersand users and the evidence of

outcomes. Information fuelscollaboration on the way to achieving agoal.

The “citizen-collaborator” becomes anactive consumer or “prosumer” ofpolicy, programs and service,identifying needs and helping to shapetheir fulfillment. The technology andtools become a means of finding betterways to integrate and balance theindividual’s preferences with his or hercommunity’s needs and resources.Prosumerism dramatically improvesthe responsiveness of public systemsand keeps everyone involved--fromofficials, to stakeholders to citizens--

focused on setting and achievinggoals together.

This model is highly collaborative anddemonstrates the changing role ofgovernment and the changingresponsibilities of citizens. It alsounderstands that collaborativepartnerships can include membersoutside of governmental boundaries.Organizational structure continues toexist but barely matters in theachievement of outcomes. All thenecessary information, talent, andknowledge are simply there, with a fewkeywords and a click on “search”.

While Government 2.0 is still in itsinfancy, and while there are stillconcrete innovations to draw on, anumber of Web 2.0 conceptspopularized in other sectors can helpform a hypothesis on how they mightwork. Perhaps the greatest opportunity

is to use Web 2.0’s tools to answermore creatively the question of “whodoes what”. Public services no longerneed to be provided by governmentalone; any combination of publicagencies, the private sector, acommunity group, or citizens canprovide them, using the Web tocollaborate, innovate and engage.

What follows are a few ideas forgetting started on the journey towardsopen government.

Unleash data. A growing chorus ofobservers (both inside and outsidegovernment) believe government’s first

priority in a Web 2.0 world should be tomake its data available on the Net inways that are open, standards-compliant, and re-usable by thirdparties--whether they’re individualcitizens or commercial or non-profitorganizations. The assumption is thatthird parties, less constrained by rigidinternal bureaucracies and strictaccountabilities, will innovate aroundthe data far more quickly and freelythan government can. Bothgovernment and non-governmententities stand to benefit as acombination of Web 2.0 technologies(including XML, RSS feeds, and datavisualization tools) makes governmentdata available in attractive, boldgraphic forms that anyone canunderstand and debate. Agencies canemploy these technologies internally,to improve interagency cooperation,reduce redundant activities, identify

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Open Government Serves CitizensBy Maryantonett FlumianOttawa University

Public services no longer need to be provided by governmentalone; any combination of public agencies, the private sector,a community group, or citizens can provide them, using the

Web to collaborate, innovate and engage.

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potential synergies between programs,empower larger portions of theirworkforces, and reduce operatingcosts. Having learned how to alterpolicy-making and evaluationprocesses based on these newsources of information and insight,they can then invite the public to usethe tools, with comparable benefits.“Emergent behavior” can lead to newinsights, innovations and strategiesthat even the smartest individualscouldn’t produce in isolation.

Embrace open standards and Webservices. Leading governments areemulating their private sectorcounterparts and embracing the newstandards, capabilities andarchitectures of Web services. Mostimportant, there’s a change in mindsetfrom thinking about enterpriseapplications only, to building anEnterprise Service Architecture (ESA)founded on Web services, the newparadigm in software. Here, a singleservice platform enables and drives allapplications so that internal orexternal users can access importantservices regardless of channel. Webservices and an ESA reduceintegration costs and dramaticallyspeed application development,creating much more open, powerfuland adaptable IT environments. Withan Enterprise Service Architecture,governments have Net-based,standards-oriented, flexible softwareenvironments that can encompassinformation in structured andunstructured form, as well as inmultivendor systems. This, in turn,provides the foundation for deliveringhigh-quality services--such aseducation, health, and security--as anintegrated ecosystem of providers(perhaps blending public and privateservices), not as a collection ofhundreds of departments withincompatible systems.

Create an Ideastorm. Governmentscan harness the power of presumptionby asking customers how to improveservice quality. Dell Computer’sIdeaStorm provides a useful templatefor government agencies. Launched in2007, IdeaStorm

(www.dellideastorm.com) looks andfeels a lot like Digg.com, the populartechnology news aggregator. Userspost suggestions and the communityvotes; the most popular ideas rise tothe top. The user-driven idea-filteringprocess eases the burden on companyresources by harnessing “the crowd”to sift through mountains of feedback.Less than a week after IdeaStorm’slaunch, users had contributed over1,300 ideas that were voted on morethan 120,000 times. Dell has alreadytranslated many of the ideascontributed by Dell customers intoproduct and service innovations.

Leverage new channels forfeedback. New Web-based tools thatimprove the ability of organizations togather and analyze feedback from theircustomers are emerging to supportcontinuous innovation andimprovement. In many cases, thirdparties in the non-profit sector arerunning excellent customer feedbacksites, suggesting that in some casesgovernments could readily tap intoexisting online communities ratherthan build their own. Initiatives suchas www.fixmystreet.org in the U.K.enable residents to submit concernsabout safety, vandalism or other localissues directly to their municipalcouncil. The site features a trackingmechanism that indicates whetherlocal concerns (such as a pothole-riddled road) have been addressed bythe relevant authorities. Using the site,British residents play a more activerole in increasing public welfare, whilehelping local government officialsidentify issues in their jurisdiction. Inthe health care arena, the independentUK-based www.patientopinion.orgallows patients to rate differenthospitals and provide feedback ontheir experiences.

Open a virtual service desk.Thenumber of citizens participating invirtual worlds such as Second Lifemay be low, but it is not too early toexperiment with virtual service desksin the medium. A number of agencieshave already done so, citing therelatively low costs, the ability to reachyoung people and the desire to prove

that governments are keeping pacewith innovative uses of technology. Theofficial tourism foundation of Tuscany,is one of the first public-sectororganizations to exploit Second Life asa medium for tourism-relatedmarketing and services. Its ToscanaIsland lets Second Life visitors tourthe Tower of Pisa, the Ponte Vecchioand the Duomo in Florence, with audiocommentary available. At the U.S.Centers for Disease Control andPrevention Island, users can watchvideos and pod.c.asts and use a slateof interactive and innovative tools toreview educational information. TheU.S. National Library of Medicine hasestablished Health Info Island with amedical library and virtual hospitalfacility. It will eventually offer training,outreach, consumer health resourcesand one-on-one support on SecondLife to bring public health informationand interventions to consumers where,when and how they need them.

Reaching the next frontier of servicemeans opening up governmentofficials, stakeholders and citizens tocollaboration. Technology and toolsenable productive dialogue. The arrayof tools--from blogs, to socialnetworks, to wikis and beyond--willcontinue to evolve in theirsophistication and application. Theyprovide platforms for the collaborationthat reshapes government and helps toopen it up to its citizens.

The single biggest driver towardsthese horizons is leadership. As we’veseen, political leadership andexecutive leadership are critical. Andcitizens are pushing us all. n

Maryantonett Flumian was the first head ofService Canada, the CanadianGovernment’s agency for providing secure,one-stop, personalized services to citizens.Maryantonett Flumian is an AssociateProfessor at the University of OttawaGraduate School in Public and InternationalAffairs. For additional information contact Maryantonett.Flumian@uottawa.ca

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