Transparency experts advising patience over Obama open government initiative

The first steps were easy: Most agencies met the first deadline of President Obama’s December directive to launch open government Web sites within 60 days. Agencies were also required to post three high-value data sets in an easily accessible format; the two dozen agencies tracked by the Office of Management and Budget all met this requirement, too.

But the next steps — drafting open government plans with long-term steps for improving transparency, and soliciting public feedback — will be harder and take months to complete, experts say.

“The government needs to be very clear that this isn’t an immediate process. Expectations are set too high,” said Leslie Harris, the president of the Center for Technology and Democracy, who said agencies would realistically need months to refine their plans. Agencies have until the end of April to finalize those plans.

Agencies say most data they posted recently were information they had already planned to post. The Environmental Protection Agency posted toxicological information for hundreds of chemicals; the Energy Department posted details of energy-related scientific research. The Interior Department went beyond the requirements, posting seven data sets on everything from national parks to forest fires.

The quality of the open government sites varies widely, the nonprofit OMB Watch found in its ranking of 36 sites. NASA got the highest score; OMB Watch found the site easy to use and easily accessible from NASA’s main Web site. Several other agencies scored well, including the General Services Administration and State Department. They provide copious links to publicly available reports as required by the directive.

Not every agency scored so well. Ironically, the Office of Management and Budget, which tracks compliance with the directive, received the lowest rating; OMB’s site includes few links to public information and doesn’t have a feature to collect public input, both of which are features on the high-scoring Web sites.

Agencies say they’re particularly concerned about the Obama directive’s public feedback requirement, which requires agencies to solicit and use public feedback on improving transparency and citizen participation. Many agencies say they’re concerned about rolling out technology to support this requirement, although some have already issued solicitations for Web design and social networking projects. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, for example, issued a solicitation last month for a contractor to build social networking tools for its open government site.

And a number of tech firms have launched new products aimed at agencies trying to meet open government mandates. A consortium of companies — including Google, PayPal and VeriSign — last week formed a nonprofit organization to create common standards for digital identities. Citizens will be able to use logins issued by the companies to access federal Web sites, which they could use to offer feedback.

But Robynn Sturm, assistant deputy chief technology officer for open government at the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, cautioned that agencies should focus on defining their specific needs.

“When thinking about your open government plans, you should start with what you want to achieve in the next two years and then work back from that, thinking about how an open approach might help you,” Sturm said.

Copyright 2010 Army Times Publishing Co.