OMB Progress Report on E-Government Act Implementation

From the White House: "This is OMB’s fifth annual progress report on implementation of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 107-347; Dec. 17, 2002) (the “E-Government Act”) as required by 44 USC 3606. This report describes activities completed in fiscal year (FY) 2007, and is among a series of reports produced by OMB to describe the Administration’s use of E-Government principles to improve government performance and the delivery of information and services to the public."  [RJ]

April 16, 2008 in eGovernment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

2007 Gold Mouse Report: Lessons from the Best Web Sites on Capitol Hill

From the press release:

"A new report from the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) on congressional Web sites says the overall quality “continues to be disappointing,” with more than 40% of congressional Web sites earning a substandard or failing grade. The report also contains recognition and praise for the best Web sites on Capitol Hill with the announcement of the winners of the 2007 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Mouse Awards. 

"The good news is that 19 more offices won awards in 2007 than did in 2006, including 16 freshmen Members.  The bad news is that there were 20 more D's and F's," said Beverly Bell, Executive Director of CMF, a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded 30 years ago to promote a more effective Congress.  "We were glad to see good sites getting better, but discouraged to see the bad getting worse."

Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, The 2007 Gold Mouse Report: Lessons from the Best Web Sites on Capitol Hill evaluated 618 congressional Web sites, including those of all Senate and House Members and Delegates, committees (both majority and minority sites) and official leadership sites.  Providing invaluable assistance for the 2007 report were research partners from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the University of California-Riverside, and Ohio State University."

[RJ]

January 30, 2008 in eGovernment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

E-Government 2.0: Improving Innovation, Collaboration, and Access

Hearing, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:  [Webcast]

Member Statements

Witnesses Testimony 

[RJ]

January 18, 2008 in eGovernment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0

Professor David C. Wyld's The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0 (pdf) examines public sector implementation of blogging in "the context of the larger revolutionary forces at play" in the development of Web 2.0. Wyld observes that "blogging is growing as a tool for promoting not only online engagement of citizens and public servants, but also offline engagement."

Blogging at U.S. Strategic Command. Wyld describes how blogging is used within agencies to improve internal communications and speed the flow of information. Of special interest, his report includes a case study of the experience of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which has led the way in using blogging to transform the culture and flow of information, prompted by the need for speed in fighting today’s challenges. [JH]

December 10, 2007 in Blog Studies, eGovernment, Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hack, Mash & Peer: Crowdsourcing Government Transparency

George Mason University professor Jerry Brito's Hack, Mash & Peer: Crowdsourcing Government Transparency is now available on SSRN. Here's the abstract for this very interesting paper:

In order to hold government accountable for its actions, citizens must know what those actions are. To that end, they must insist that government act openly and transparently to the greatest extent possible. In the Twenty- First Century, this entails making its data available online and easy to access. If government data is made available online in useful and flexible formats, citizens will be able to utilize modern Internet tools to shed light on government activities. Such tools include mashups, which highlight hidden connections between different data sets, and crowdsourcing, which makes light work of sifting through mountains of data by focusing thousands of eyes on a particular set of data.

Today, however, the state of government's online offerings is very sad indeed. Some nominally publicly available information is not online at all, and the data that is online is often not in useful formats. Government should be encouraged to release public information online in a structured, open, and searchable manner. To the extent that government does not modernize, however, we should hope that private third parties build unofficial databases and make these available in a useful form to the public.

[JH]

November 19, 2007 in eGovernment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Book: Building a Nation's Image on the World Wide Web

Building a Nation's Image on the World Wide Web: A Study of the Head of State Web Sites of Developing Countries by T. Kenn Gaither

List Price: $89.95
Hardcover: 312 pages
Publisher: Cambria Press (September 2007)
ISBN-10: 1934043567
ISBN-13: 978-1934043561

Book Description: This is a rich theoretical and empirical study concerning international public relations on the web for head of state English web sites for developing countries. There is no other research in this area that comes close to the depth with which this topic is addressed in this study. In this regard, its contribution is very significant. Highly original, this study breaks new ground and may very well contribute to a new field in international public relations on the internet.

November 14, 2007 in eGovernment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack