Help Evaluate Open Government Plans
Amy Alyce Fuller
As many of you may know, one of the key requirements of the Open Government Directive is for agencies to develop and publish Open Government Plans by April 7th. These plans will provide the public with a wealth of information about how agencies intend to create a lasting culture of openness. OpenTheGovernment.org is arranging an audit of the Open Government Plans, and we need your expertise!
Our goal is to have each plan evaluated by April 16th. To help accomplish this goal, we have created an evaluation form (example available here) that asks the evaluator to give the plan a score of 0 to 3 on each required component of the plan. The form is designed to give the agency a “final score” that takes into account whether or not the agency: omits an element from a plan (0 points), fails to fully address an element in its plan (1 point), fulfills the requirement (2 points), and exceeds the requirement (3 points). The “basic score,” which is used to determine the percent grade the agency receives, assumes that the agency fulfills each requirement (2 points each). In addition to awarding “extra points” to an agency for exceeding a requirement, the form directs evaluators to give “extra points” to agencies that were not required to develop and publish a plan, but did any way. The public can view these evaluations, comment on any part of the plans they think are impressive, and make concrete suggestions on how the agency could improve its plan on our Evaluating Open Government Site.
Several organizations have volunteered to evaluate plans, but there is more to be done. If you are interested in how an agency is doing, and are willing to help by filling out the evaluation yourself, please email in...@openthgovernment.org . Let us know what agency you would like to grade, and a little bit about your involvement with the agency. If the agency is not already covered, we can email you back with a link that will allow you to fill out the form using Google Docs.
Thanks,
Amy Bennett
OpenTheGovernment.org
Noel Dickover
Just a thought for a potential addition to your criteria. One fear many of us have is that the OGD Plans themselves will be nothing more than "check the box" actions to placate OMB. The OGD calls out for the plans to reflect the input of senior "policy, legal, and technology leadership" in an agency along with the "general public and open government experts". Frankly, in most of the larger agencies, this requirement is simply not executable in the timeframe provided. Even if they wanted to do more, most will only be able to engage a select group of staff at the head of the Agency to "answer the mail". So the question I would have is whether the plans address this point - either that they have miraculously accomplished this action in the 120 day timeframe (meaning they probably started well before December), or that this is an integral part of their actions moving forward. If not, the implication is that most sub-Agencies below of the top of the Agency (e.g., the organizations with the actual data) weren't involved in the development of the OGD, and may not be as the Agency moves forward with its plans.
The idea here is that including this criteria in your checklist might give early indications that an Agency is just going through the motions. In this sense, some items on the list are clearly more valuable than others. In other words, the final score given to a plan may be far less useful than indications coming from the plan on whether the Agency is serious about open government.
Noel Dickover
CrisisCommons.org
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