Following the first year of implementation of the Open Government Directive, a number of valuable reports have addressed the openness and transparency progress made by federal agencies. Today’s Open Source for America (OSFA) report card digs a little deeper into its own domain – Open Source, Open Technology in use in their report on Federal Agencies. Although the US White House Open Government Directive isn’t explicitly about underlying technology to “get to open”, it’s not gone without notice that open source software drives much of the infrastructure that makes the process work. I like to think of it as a kind of Swiss Army knife for open data and transparency.
But read the report, it’s all in there. Read the press release.
OSFA has also made the entire table available for download. Download the report.
According to the release…
The Federal Open Technology Report Card evaluated key indicators of open government and open technologies developed through online crowd sourcing and refined metrics outlined by the OSFA leadership committee. These included questions regarding public budgets, use of social media, and open source technology practices. 2010 marked the first year federal government agencies were operating under the Directive and Open Government Plans, and the results are promising. Many of the agencies scored well, while others have room for improvement. The Report Card assigned a percentage grade to the 15 Cabinet-level departments and agencies use of open source technologies, open formats, and technology tools for citizen engagement.
A few of the agencies graded in the report include:
- Department of Defense (82 percent)
- Department of Energy (72 percent)
- Department of Health and Human Services (55 percent)
- Department of Homeland Security (55 percent)
- Department of Transportation (53 percent)
Open Source for America is one of the projects I enjoy working with. It’s an all volunteer organization, so any time we can beg borrow and borrow our community members’ time to produce a report, it’s something to celebrate.
Bryant Group 