OpenGov Community

The Interagency Open Government Community of Practice is where we talk about transparency, open-participation, and collaboration across agencies.

Join

We host two listservs. One is open to the public/civil society for the purposes of collaboration and discussion as well as coordination the quarterly government & civil society gatherings. The other is a government-only listserv and is primarily to disseminate government specific information on timelines and deadlines for the NAP and offer support as agencies work to achieve their commitments.

• Public: (please subscribe if you are interested in collaboration with federal and civil society OpenGov partners) Join here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/us-open-government
• Government-only: For those working on NAP commitments or involved in OpenGov initiatives for your agency. Join by emailing the OpenGov listserv.

Overview

In 2009, the White House issued an unprecedented Open Government Directive requiring federal agencies to take immediate, specific steps to achieve key milestones in transparency, participation, and collaboration. Agencies have set forth those steps in biennial Open Government Plans available on each agency’s Open Government website. The Interagency Open Government Working Group launched in early 2010 as a forum for open government professionals across agencies to share best practices to promote transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Group meets monthly and opens its meetings to civil society colleagues on a quarterly basis. In 2011, the open government efforts were expanded with the launch of the Open Government Partnership U.S. efforts with the Open Government Partnership are set forth in biennial Open Government National Action Plans (NAP)  that detail specific and measurable open government commitments.

The goal of these groups is to provide a safe and open arena for US-focused collaboration and news-sharing around Open Government. Specific topics include:

• The Open Government Plan
• The NAP Commitments

Who we are

The OpenGov community consists of government employees and civil society members working in the the field of Open Government. We work on the US NAP share best practices, and advocate for opening government information. The goal of the meetings is to discuss the NAP commitments, to connect with OMB to support them through that process, and work collaboratively to meet the milestones over the 2 year commitment cycle.

What we do

Based on the Open Government Memo (M 10-06) we:

• Publish government information online
• Improve the quality of government information
• Create and Institutionalize a culture of Open Government
• Create and enable framework for Open Government

Key Resources

• M-09-12, President’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government – Interagency Collaboration (1.1 MB PDF, 3 pages)
• M 10-06, Open Government Directive (82 kb PDF, 11 pages)
• GSA’s OpenGov Plan