National Archives Open Government Plan: Milestones

November 28, 2011 - President Barack Obama signs the "Presidential Memorandum on Managing Government Records." This marks the start of an executive branch-wide effort to reform records management policies and practices.  Learn more about this memorandum on Records Express.

November 8, 2011 - Archives.gov, ranks 7th in the Visible Thread Website Index. The index ranked 30 government websites for clarity of written content, including: readability, passive language, long sentences, and word complexity density. 

November 1, 2011 - The National Archives launches the "Document Your Environment Student Multimedia Contest" in conjunction with the EPA. Students ages 13 and up can enter graphic art, video, and poetry categories using 1970s Documerica photographs as their inspiration. Judges for the contest include: Michael Philip Manheim, Documerica photographer; Cokie Roberts, author and news analyst for NPR and ABC News; and Sandra Alcosser, the first poet Laureate of Montana. Enter and support the contest on Challenge.gov and read more about the contest on the NARAtions Blog.

October 18, 2011 - The National Archives makes two software applications available on GitHub, a social coding platform. The NARA File Analyzer and the NARA Video Frame Analyzer were developed by the National Archives to facilitate digitization workflows and are now available to the public and other institutions. Learn more about the digitization tools on the NARAtions Blog.

September 20, 2011 - The White House releases the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan. New initiatives related to the National Archives include "Modernize Management of Government Records," involving the work of the Office of the Chief Records Officer, and "Declassify National Security Information," involving the work of the National Declassification Center.

September 16, 2011 - The White House releases "The Obama Administration's Commitment to Open Government: A Status Report."

July 13, 2011 – Plain Writing at the National Archives introduces our program to provide "clear Government communication that the public can understand and use" by October, 2011. If you have suggestions on ways to improve writing in our documents and/or website, contact us at plainwriting@nara.gov – we'd like to hear from you!

June 9, 2011 – The National Archives participates in a worldwide conversation #AskArchivists day on Twitter.

June 8 – August 9, 2011 – "I Found It in the National Archives!" Contest encourages researchers to share their personal stories and treasures that they’ve found in the records of the National Archives. Learn more about the contest and how you can participate on the NARAtions Blog post.

June 2011 – The Products and Services Web Portal is made publicly available on Archives.gov. The charts show NARA’s digitization and reformatting options to help NARA units in decision-making. Although intended for internal purposes, they were developed in collaboration with other institutions and may be of use to other peer institutions.

June 2011 – "Tagging" is added as a feature to the Online Public Access Prototype. Learn more about how you can participate on the NARAtions Blog post "Tag, You’re It!" We’re excited to introduce this crowdsourcing feature that will increase your ability to search the records of the National Archives.

May 18, 2011 – The National Archives hosts the program, "Are You In? Citizen Archivists, Crowdsourcing, and Open Government" featuring Darla Adams from Ancestry.com's World Archives Project, Matt Knutzen from the New York Public Library's "Map Warper" project, and Jessica Zelt from the US Geological Survey's North American Bird Phenology Program.

May 2011 – The National Archives welcomes its first Wikipedia in Residence, Dominic McDevitt-Parks. Learn more about Dominic and his work at the National Archives on the NARAtions Blog.

April 28, 2011 – Archives.gov wins a 2011 ClearMark Award for public sector website/dynamic Media. Judges commented that Archives.gov is a very simple-to-use-site! Learn more about the Archives.gov redesign.

April 26, 2011 – The National Archives releases a updated version of the Online Public Access (OPA) Protype. You can now "Bookmark and Share" as well as magnify or zoom in on images and documents for closer inspection.

April 26, 2011 – On their blog, Transforming Classification, the Public Interest Declassification Board invites public proposals for transforming the classification system.

April 22, 2011 – A new blog post on "The FOIA Ombudsman" discusses the Office of Government Information Services take on Open Government.

April 12, 2011 – Media Access to Government Information Conference (MAGIC) sponsored by the National Archives and Duke University's Dewitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy.

April 7, 2011 – NARA's One Year Anniversary with Open Government: transparency, participation, collaboration, the year in review!

March 31, 2011 – The National Archives announces the finalists for the History Happens Here! contest. Altogether, more than 80 innovative photos were submitted by 22 contestants. The contest received 165 supporters on Challenge.gov.

March 21-22, 2011 – Open Government Research and Development Summit held at the National Archives in Washington, DC. This event focuses on setting the foundation for a robust research and development agenda that ensures the benefits of open government are widely realized. For more information visit http://www.nitrd.gov/opengov/. Email opengov@nitrd.gov to register for this event by March 16, 2011.

March 18, 2011 – The Archivist of the United States is a panelist at Sunshine Week 2011 Event and Webcast, "The Road Forward on Open Government," at the Center for American Progress, Washington, D.C. For more information visit .http://openthegovernment.org/node/463.

March 17, 2011 – David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, blogs about Sunshine Week 2011.

March 15, 2011 – Watch the webcast of the Senate Judiciary Committee Full Committee hearing "The Freedom of Information Act: Ensuring Transparency and Accountability in the Digital Age." The hearing included Miriam Nisbit, Director of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives.

March 14, 2011 – The Public Interest Declassification Board launches a new blog called, "Transforming Classification" to solicit public opinion on how to fundamentally transform the security classification system.

March 13-19, 2011 – Sunshine Week. Learn more about this week’s events. On March 16, the 13th Annual National Freedom of Information Day Conference will be held at the Newsuem.

March 11, 2011 – The Office of Government Information Services launches a new blog called, "The FOIA Ombudsman" to provide information and advice as well as build a bridge between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies.

March 3, 2011 - The 2010 Records Management Self-Assessment Report is released. Read more about this report on Records Express.

December 9, 2010 - January 21, 2011 – The National Archives hosts an innovative contest called History Happens Here! on Challenge.gov. Contestants were asked to create a photo "mashup" of a NARA archival image and the present day. All photo submissions were posted to the flickr group page.