Open Source for America to Measure Openness and Transparency Across U.S. Federal Government Agencies
Open Source for America (OSFA), an organization of technology industry leaders, non-government associations and academic and research institutions promoting the use of open source technologies in the U.S. Federal government, announced today its sponsorship of a study to measure openness in government. The study, which is scheduled to be released in Q3FY2010, will gauge openness and transparency across federal agencies and will culminate in a report card assigning a grade to each federal agency based on its public transparency, participation and collaboration. Visit OpenSourceforAmerica.org for more information about the study and the organization.
The Obama Administration has emphasized the need for greater government transparency. President Obama issued a transparency and openness memo the day after he took office and the Administration has taken many steps over the past several months to continue its momentum in creating an open government. Today marks the six-month anniversary of the Open Government Directive, directing executive departments and agencies to take specific actions to implement principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.
“Open Source for America applauds and supports the Administration's efforts to engage citizens in a spirit of transparency, participation and collaboration,” stated Tom Rabon, executive vice president, Corporate Affairs at Red Hat, Inc. and a member of the OSFA steering committee. “When the President directs such a massive undertaking, agencies benefit from outside review and we're happy to help them measure their progress toward openness objectives.”
The study will be conducted by experts from within OSFA. These experts will consider a number of factors relating to access and transparency identified by OSFA members and the community at large as key indicators of openness. Factors OSFA will evaluate include Freedom of Information Act processes, public access to agency documents, use of online public participation tools, and technology procurement procedures, among others. Agency representatives from the Administration's newly formed Open Government Working Group will be invited to participate in the study.
“Open government can incentivize innovation by promoting accountability and inviting citizen perspectives,” continued Rabon “Citizens are most empowered when their government removes barriers to participation. In that spirit, OSFA has opened the study criteria to the public via an online distributed problem-solving production model called crowd sourcing.”
“Like open source, open government encourages innovation, promotes accountability, and invites citizen participation,” said Jim Harper of WashingtonWatch.com. “Transparency is essential to this. By measuring agencies' transparency efforts and their ability to collaborate with the public, we can reward those agencies who understand how powerful that can be.”
OSFA's goal with this report card effort is to provide the incentive to develop and leverage online tools and the distributed problem-solving model to effectively measure the adoption of open source technologies within the U.S. Federal government.
To join OSFA and help build support for the use of open source technologies, visit the OSFA website atwww.opensourceforamerica.org.
