Check out how Data.gov is making news. You'll also discover stories about Open Government and how Data.gov supports its core principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.


Open gov: So far, so good, but further still to go—Federal Computer Week

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

David McClure’s job is to help federal agencies keep pace with the latest technologies, including social media, collaboration platforms and mobile applications, so they can use those technologies to better communicate with the public.


Issa rejects federal transparency bill—Federal Computer Week

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

A new bill designed to improve federal government transparency won't be considered by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to Federal News Radio.

The committee's ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D.-Md.), introduced the Transparency and Openness in Government Act (H. R. 1144), which would combine the Presidential Records Act Amendments, Electronic Message Preservation Act, Government Accountability Office Improvement Act, Presidential Library Donation Reform Act and Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments into one bill, Federal News Radio reported.


GSA revisits improvements to USA.gov search­—Federal News Radio

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The General Services Administration is trying once again to make USA.gov the king of all government search. After four previous attempts, GSA launched new search capabilities for the government's portal taking advantage of new technologies and the evolution of how users find information.

"This is based on the [Microsoft] Bing index, but it's using algorithms and indices of the federal websites," said Dave McClure, GSA's associate administrator in GSA's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, at the Management of Change Conference sponsored by ACT and IAC. "It's also a learning algorithm, so the more you search the more it determines what you it is you actually are looking for."


Data.gov begins move to cloud to allow social sharing, more visualization tools—Federal Computer Week

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Obama administration has begun transitioning its primary open-data website onto a cloud-based platform as Data.gov Next Generation. However, the change brings some questions about when the move is officially happening and whether it's fully funded.


Data.gov Migrating to Cloud Platform—Forbes

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Obama administration has begun transitioning its primary open-data website onto a cloud-based platform as Data.gov Next Generation. Features of the next iteration of Data.gov are also being highlighted on a website hosted by Socrata, an open-data company. Socrata was among the vendors that were awarded a $46 million blanket purchase agreement in October 2010 to deliver dataset hosting services for Data.gov.


Online government information—The Daily Journal, Florida Times-Union

Friday, May 13, 2011

One of the best ways to keep government accountable is to provide public information online about how it spends taxpayer money. Promising efforts have been made in recent years to give the public more insights into the operations of a federal government that seems too large to fathom. But groundbreaking federal sites such as USAspending.gov, the IT Dashboard, Data.gov and others designed to enhance transparency are in danger because of a massive budget cut, despite being just a sliver of the federal budget, says the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to make federal data more accessible.


New website will track federal agencies' performance—Federal Computer Week

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A senior administration official told senators at a hearing May 10 that the government will launch an early version of a new website, Performance.gov, in the next few weeks to publicly track the performance of federal agency programs.

Jeffrey Zients, the chief performance officer and the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, described the planned site to the panel, and also described other initiatives the administration has undertaken to improve the government’s performance.


With e-gov fund cuts, will citizen-developed apps discontinue?—Federal News Radio

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Three years ago, D.C. launched the Apps for Democracy contest - a private-public partnership to encourage citizens to develop apps that took advantage of the District's open data catalogue. The contest had two rules - Use DC.gov data and make the app open source. The District offered a $35,000 in cash prizes and received 47 apps worth an estimated $2.3 million in cost avoidance.


By the numbers: 137 federal data centers to close—Gov in the Lab

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

By now you’ve probably heard the April 27 announcement from the Office of Management and Budget: The federal government it shuttering 137 data centers by Dec. 31. What you may not have seen is how the data center closures affect agencies and states. Below you can view my graphic interpretations of the OMB-provided information. I also encourage you to read my story on the subject, which provides greater context. (See the interactive version of this map.)


The Next Generation of Open Government—WAMC Public Radio Blog

Thursday, April 28, 2011

“There’s an app for that.” How many times have you heard that line? If you have a smart phone or a computer, there’s almost no limit to the software applications you can get for it. An app called Shazam will identify a song you play or hum. Dropbox allows you to share photos, videos and other files easily. Let’s not even get started on Google translate, Google scholar and the rest of that universe.


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