Open Data = Open Government?

Can the Internet Make a More Open Government? Saul Hansell asks in his June 1st New York Times article. He writes,

 “The Obama presidential campaign made groundbreaking use of social networking sites and other tools to organize its supporters. President Obama has promised to use similar technology to bring citizens into government. As in so many other areas, turning promise to policy may well be more difficult than it sounded on the campaign trail.” 

Lately the web has been abuzz about how President Obama is seemingly fulfilling his promise of making the government more accountable by being more open and transparent. How can the government be more open? The Obama Administration is attempting to make government information (data) accessible and useful for the widest possible group of people. Open government data can mean increased accountability for politicians while at the same time fostering a push to innovate new services for the public. 

With this in mind, the Obama Administration has recently made live two very important websites that will be their first attempt at Open Data:

http://www.data.gov & http://www.regulations.gov/  

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

Regulations.gov is your source for all regulations (or rulemakings) issued by U.S. government agencies. On this site, you can find: 

•All Federal regulations that are open for public comment (i.e., proposed rules) and closed for comment (i.e., final rules) as published in the Federal Register. 
•Many Federal agency notices published in the Federal Register. 
•Additional supporting materials, public comments, and Federal agency guidance and adjudications.

 

You can find further progress on Open Government here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/

Keep your eyes open. Many politicians are beginning to use social sites and make frequent use of online services like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to update the goings on of the political process and give their constituents a more transparent look into the government. If the question is, “Does Open Data mean and Open Government?” there is no real answer. The information has always been available and open to the public (with hoops and strings attached), but now it’s more of a question of how will we use this information that is no more than a few click away…literally at our fingertips.

Comments

[Renee Roth]

As a user of government databases, I applaud the Obama Administration's creation of the regulations.gov website. I have't checked it out yet, but I am hopeful that it will streamline access to government information. One comment about public access to government information: According to regulations, it is supposed to be accessible to the public. However, this comes with a couple of caveats. The location of the information is not transparent at all. The federal government stores information for government access, not for that of the public; thus the difficulty of locating it. Second, there are gaps in available information. Information can and does disappear from websites for no particular reason. So take heart - The next time that you are trying to find a document in vain, it might not be your search strategy. Chances are, the information has "evaporated."