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OpenGov Glossary

Page history last edited by Lucas Cioffi 13 years, 6 months ago

Definitions are critical to effective communication within our community.  This page lists the multiple definitions of common open government terms.  You are enthusiastically invited to edit and add to this list.

(If you're new here, please click the link on the right to request access to edit this wiki; we must do this to prevent spam.)

 

Collaboration:

  • "Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation." From the White House Memorandum on Open Government.

  • "Collaborate: To work together, especially in a joint intellectual effort." from Dictionary.com

  • "Collaboration: Government officials should work together with one another and with citizens as part of doing their job of solving national problems." from the White House Open Government Progress Report, December 2009 (page 5).

 

Government 2.0

 

Participation:  

  • "Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government." From the White House Memorandum on Open Government.
  • "Participation. Government should actively solicit expertise from outside Washington so that it makes policies with the benefit of the best information." from the White House Open Government Progress Report, December 2009 (page 5).
  • NCDD List of Public Engagement Principles:
    • CAREFUL PLANNING AND PREPARATION: Through adequate and inclusive planning, ensure that the design, organization, and convening of the process serve both a clearly defined purpose and the needs of the participants.
    • INCLUSION AND DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY: Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.
    • COLLABORATION AND SHARED PURPOSE:Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the common good.
    • OPENNESS AND LEARNING:Help all involved listen to each other, explore new ideas unconstrained by predetermined outcomes, learn and apply information in ways that generate new options, and rigorously evaluate public engagement activities for effectiveness.
    • TRANSPARENCY AND TRUST:Be clear and open about the process, and provide a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of views and ideas expressed.
    • IMPACT AND ACTION:Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential.
    • SUSTAINED ENGAGEMENT AND PARTICIPATORY CULTURE: Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public engagement.
  • International Association of Public Participation's Core Values for the Practice of Public Participation
    • Public participation is based on the belief that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process.
    • Public participation includes the promise that the public's contribution will influence the decision.  
    • Public participation promotes sustainable decisions by recognizing and communicating the needs and interests of all participants, including decision makers. 
    • Public participation seeks out and facilitates the involvement of those potentially affected by or interested in a decision. 
    • Public participation seeks input from participants in designing how they participate. 
    • Public participation provides participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way. 
    • Public participation communicates to participants how their input affected the decision.
  • US CTO Aneesh Chopra Explains What Citizen Participation Might Look Like on the Intellitics Blog

 

Transparency: 

  • "Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.  Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public." from the White House Memorandum on Open Government.
  • An informed public is essential to democracy and can help create a more effective, accountable government. Transparency is a powerful tool to demonstrate to the public that the government is spending our money wisely, that politicians are not in the pocket of lobbyists and specials interest groups, that government is operating in an accountable manner, and that decisions are made to ensure the safety and protection of all Americans. Effective transparency means that the public has access to timely, accurate information in usable formats. It also means such information is easily findable, thereby allowing the public to utilize commercial or government search engines to sift through mountains of material.  (This set of recommendations was created by 54 members of the Opengov community under a Creative Commons Share-Alike Attribution License 3.0 using MixedInk's collaborative writing tool. For more about how it was created, see here. It can be republished only if accompanied by this note.)
  • "When we talk about transparency in government, we mean that citizens must be able to "see through" its workings, to know exactly what goes on when public officials transact public business. Government that is not transparent is more prone to corruption and undue influence because there is no public oversight of decision making."  from Santa Clara University.
  • Discussion of Transparency Principles from the blog at the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy
  • "Transparency: Government should provide citizens with information about what their government is doing so that government can be held accountable." from the White House Open Government Progress Report, December 2009 (page 5).

 

 

 

 

Comments (1)

David Kimball said

at 8:22 pm on Oct 1, 2010

The benefit of transparency is not only to detect "corruption and undue influence", it is also to see the balance of resources which are being applied to the various stakeholders. Often times, inbalances will occur because of complexity or other reasonable reasons, but systemic problems like that need to be able to be quickly identified in order to be corrected and in order for "Lessons Learned" to be an integral part of the "Constant Improvement" philosophy.

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