FoxNews.com had a front-page
article this week about a study showing that, despite the president’s
dedication to openness and transparency in government and his campaign’s
landmark use of the Internet, there is a drop in satisfaction among those who
use federal government websites in search of information, and that the private
sector far exceeds the government in terms of user satisfaction. The article
mentions that “navigating a government Web site can be exasperating,”
particularly for people who are used to customer-friendly sites like iTunes,
Amazon, or even Craigslist, and names Grants.gov
as the lowest-ranked federal website. The article goes so far as to describe
navigating a government website as “exasperating.” (And they’re right. Ever
tried searching grants.gov? It’s like a black hole.)

 

Anyway, this reminded me of our recent event on open government (“Moving
from e-Government to We-Government: Creating Processes for Transparency and
Openness”) where my colleague Braden Cox talked about how technology can help
facilitate a more open and transparent government. Providing open access to
government data will allow for third parties to mix/mash/use it in new and
interesting ways.  At our event, Jerry
Brito of the Mercatus Center showed attendees two websites with which he’s
involved that use government data in new ways. One uses openly available
government data about stimulus projects to let citizens view projects near
them, understand what the project is about, vote on whether or not they think
it’s a priority, and post comments and updates. Another site uses information
from the Federal Register, and organizes it in a way that makes it more usable
to citizens.  Similar to these examples,
having data available will open the door to immediate public-private
partnerships that combine government data with other sources and make it
actually useful. (For a quick example of what I’m talking about, go over to the
Federal Register and
search for regulations on, say, hazelnuts. 
Now try the same at OpenRegs.com.)

 

Obviously this is something that won’t happen overnight, as
the amount of government data available is beyond massive. To the
administration’s credit, they recently solicited ideas from the public
about the best way to make Recovery.gov
more accessible and easier for the public to use/understand. But given the
results of this survey, and the administration’s promises to make government
more open and transparent, let’s hope open government data is now a higher
priority.