Center for Excellence in Digital Government

The Center for Excellence in Digital Government provides government-wide support and solutions that help agencies deliver excellent customer service to the public via web, social media, mobile, phone, email, print and newly evolving media. These solutions include training via DigitalGov University; standards and best practices via Howto.gov; support to inter-agency communities of practice such as the Federal Web Managers Council; access to cost-cutting tools and technology; and research and analytics on citizen needs and expectations for better service.  In addition, the Center is an accelerator and incubator for government-wide new media and citizen engagement solutions, making it easier for the government and the public to constructively engage.  These tools include: Challenge.gov – a citizen engagement platform which provides the opportunity for collaboration on social media tools; and apps.gov which provides information and guidance on free social media tools.

DigitalGov University

GSA’s DigitalGov University (DGU) is the federal government’s training program for web and new media professionals.  The multi-disciplinary curriculum addresses the broad range of skills that agencies need to manage their web and new media efforts:

• federal web requirements
• governance, policy, and strategic planning
• plain language and customer-focused writing
• social media and citizen engagement
• accessibility requirements
• emerging technology

Our instructors are recognized worldwide as experts and thought leaders in web management and new media. Past instructors and presenters include Gerry McGovern, Kristina Halvorson, Candi Harrison, and Alex Langshur.

We provide many learning options: in-person training, webinars, on-demand training, and the annual Government Web and New Media conference, held each Spring in Washington, DC. 

Federal employees are the target audience for DGU classes, but state and local government workers, contractors, and non-government staff are also welcome.

Rather than having hundreds of agencies manage their own training program, DGU provides high value to government agencies because it centralizes training for web and new media staff. The program is extremely cost efficient, ensures consistent training across agencies, and fosters the sharing of common challenges, solutions, and best practices across government.

View DigitalGov University Schedule of Classes

Contact DigitalGov University
Email: DigitalGov University
Phone: 202–208–0668

HowTo.gov

HowTo.gov is a website to help government workers deliver a better customer experience to citizens. It supports cross-agency collaboration and provides tools and ideas to help agencies effectively serve, engage, and support their customers, no matter how they choose to interact, with best practices, training, and guidance on:

• Strategic planning and coordinating customer service channels;
• Federal web requirements and policies;
• Cloud computing, apps, data and web infrastructure tools;
• Online citizen engagement through social media and open government;
• Web content management, usability, and design; and
• Contact center services.

Email the HowTo.gov team at howto@gsa.gov

Federal Web Managers Council

The Center for Excellence in Digital Government supports the Federal Web Managers Council, which serves as a steering committee for all these efforts. The Council is an interagency group of agency Web and New Media Directors who collaborate to improve the online delivery of U.S. government information and services.

Members are from all federal cabinet agencies, as well as congressional support agencies, and major independent and sub-agencies that deliver top citizen tasks.

The Council was formed in 2004 to help agencies meet requirements of the E-Government Act of 2002. Today, the Web Council has grown into a dynamic and influential community of practice, and guides the work of several Sub-Councils, as well as the Web Content Managers Forum, a community of nearly 3,000 U.S. Government web content managers.

Documents by the Federal Web Managers Council:

Social Media and the Federal Government: Perceived and Real Barriers and Potential Solutions

Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government

Email Rachel Flagg and Sheila Campbell with questions about the Federal Web Managers Council

Innovation Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government.

President Obama has encouraged agencies to use innovation challenges and prizes to promote open government and innovation.

GSA is helping by providing Challenge.gov., a platform for federal agencies to post challenges and a place for the public to find and participate in federal challenges.

Challenge.gov is now open for federal employees. Send an email from your federal government email account to govaccess@challenge.gov if you’d like information on how to conduct a challenge at your agency.

The Challenges and Prizes information in GSA’s Flagship Initiatives section includes more about GSA’s plans to use challenges and prizes to promote open government.

Collaboration

As the agency charged with supporting federal agencies and their operations, GSA's collaboration role is unique. While participation involves GSA's work with the public, collaboration involves GSA's work with other government agencies.

GSA provides superior workplaces, services, and products for all agencies at the best possible value. Because of its unique position, GSA has the opportunity to work closely with other agencies to seek innovative strategies as solutions to government-wide challenges.

These collaborative efforts help the government conserve money and resources as agencies are presented with ready-made solutions to their problems.

Citizen Engagement Platform

The citizen engagement platform makes it easier for agencies to use social media tools that are compatible with federal laws and policies, including tools that are accessible to persons with disabilities.

In a secure government space, GSA has built a fully functioning software as a service storefront that allows government agencies to easily deploy tools such as blogs, wikis, and forums, and a URL shortener to help engage with the public in a simple, cost-effective way. 

All tools for the Citizen Engagement Platform are based on open source code. As GSA modifies add-ons, plug-ins and widgets to meet accessibility requirements we will make our code available to the open source community for reuse and improvement. We will also ask the developer community to help us develop the code and to provide ideas to improve the system.