Welcome to the OpenGov Playbook

(A transcript is available for this video.)

(Welcome! 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.) 

Notes:

1. Are you able to build an international version of this diagram?  Please do and add it to this page!

2. This diagram is in draft form.  Please feel free to add your comments or upload an alternate version here.

What can happen at the intersections?

• Transparency & Participation: Transparency helps ensure that citizen participation (defined as participation in government in decision-making) is well-informed.
• Transparency & Collaboration: A transparent government is more welcoming to potential organizational partners that are addressing the same societal problems.
• Participation & Collaboration: After the public helps the government with a tough decision, they are already much more likely to support the solution and can be partners in implementation.
• Open Data & Transparency: Government data is much more useful when formatted in a way that facilitates easy search by other computer systems ("machine-readable").
• Open Data & Collaboration: Organizations can build on open government data to create new services and generate economic value.
• Open Data & Participation: [enter an idea!] 

About the OpenGov Playbook

This workspace is for open government practitioners at the federal, state, and local levels to share questions and effective practices about open government.  Knowledge about opengov is spread out across the Web; the purpose of this site not to recreate those resources, but to instead serve as a useful directory to them and send them more traffic.  If you have videos, blog articles, and other content on your website that is applicable to opengov, you are welcome to links to the OpenGov Playbook in the appropriate place; this will provide more information for open government practitioners and bring more visibility to your site.  Start at the Table of Contents.

If you'd just like to browse, then...

• You may want to look for some great ideas among this list of open government case studies and effective practices. (recommended)
• See the page for What's New?
• Browse presentations from previous workshops.

If you would like to comment on any of these pages, then...

• You will be asked to create an account on this site with a username and password.

If you would like to publish links to your open government case studies...

The OpenGov Playbook is a wiki, and everyone is welcome to become an editor.  Use the link on the right side of the page to request access.  You'll receive a confirmation email within a few hours.

• As an editor, you are welcome to browse and edit the list of questions and the list of effective practices and if you determine your content is applicable, you may add a link and a brief description under "External Resources" for that page.
• You may also create new pages on any topic you determine to be applicable to the Open Government Directive.  Use this template for adding new questions or this template for adding new case studies.

Need Help?

Each page is a wiki which means that anyone can edit it.  If you are not familiar with editing a wiki, email your suggestion or question to info@opengovplaybook.org and one our team of volunteer editors will post your information.  If possible, please suggest which page on this wiki you believe your content is most applicable.  Another easy way to add ideas and links is to leave a comment at the bottom of any of the pages.  You may also click on the link on the right side of this page to request access to join as a volunteer editor (one of our editors will respond within a few hours).  We welcome your feedback!

Table of Contents:

Introduction

• What is Open Government? Getting started with Open Government
• Federal Government Open Government Milestones 
• Open Government Definitions (recommended) 
• See the page for What's New? (recommended)

Case Studies and Effective Open Government Practices:

• Transparency case studies (highly recommended)
• Participation case studies (highly recommended)
• Collaboration case studies (highly recommended)
• Other effective practices (highly recommended)

Frequently Asked Questions about the Open Government Directive:

• about cultural barriers to implementation (recommended)
• about policy barriers to implementation
• about technical barriers to implementation
• other problems and questions

Additional Information on Social Media and Collaborative Tools

• Developing an Agency Social Strategy  (recommended)
• Guide to Creating Your Own "Apps for Air, Earth, Space, Life, Humanity" Contest to involve software developers with the data you publish
• OpenGov 2.0 Facebook Fan Site 
• Open Gov West Wiki
• OpenGov Technology Matrix
• Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government (from USA.Gov)
• Social Media and the Government: A Brief Introduction for Federal Managers by Jeffrey Levy
• Web 2 0 Governance Policies and Best Practices (Web Content Managers' Social Media Subcouncil)
• Social Media Outlet Authentication Best Practices (Web Content Managers' Social Media Subcouncil)
• Example from the EPA: Guidance for Representing an Agency through Social Media (Web Content Managers' Social Media Subcouncil)
• Comment Moderation Policies (Web Content Managers' Social Media Subcouncil)
• Collaboration Project, independent forum of leaders who share a commitment to the adoption and use of collaborative technologies to solve the complex problems of public management
• GovLoop, a social network for Gov 2.0
• GovTwit, a searchable directory of Government using Twitter
• The Federal Wave, a non-technology specific environment, intending to help with the development of collective intelligence for individuals and groups to apply themselves rapidly using Web 2.0
• Participedia, user-generated articles which will describe and assess participatory governance throughout the world
• ParticipateDB, a nifty little directory of online tools for public participation
• "Communities of Practice: A New Tool for Government Managers”: This study documents the creation and implementation of several intergovernmental "communities of practice."

Upcoming Open Government Events

• Here is a list of all calendars resources and mailing lists maintained by other organizations where you can find out about events related to open gov.

About the White House's Open Government Initiative

White House's Web page: "For too long, the American people have experienced a culture of secrecy in Washington, where information is locked up, taxpayer dollars disappear without a trace, and lobbyists wield undue influence.   For Americans, business as usual in Washington has reinforced the belief that the government benefits the special interests and the well connected at the expense of the American people. But President Obama committed to change the way Washington works. And he has begun to do just that."

White House's Web page: "On his first day in Office, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, ushering in a new era of open and accountable government meant to bridge the gap between the American people and their government:

• The Administration is reducing the influence of special interests by writing new ethics rules that prevent lobbyists from coming to work in government or sitting on its advisory boards.
• The Administration is tracking how government uses the money with which the people have entrusted it with easy-to-understand websites like recovery.gov, USASpending.gov, and IT.usaspending.gov.
• The Administration is empowering the public – through greater openness and new technologies – to influence the decisions that affect their lives.

On December 8, 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.  You can see all Open Government Directive milestones, track progress across the Executive Branch on the Open Government Dashboard, and read about how the Obama Administration is changing the way Washington works in the Progress Report to the American People."

Additional Information on the Open Government Directive

• White House's Open Government Directive Dashboard
• OGD Open Feedback Firehose (via the Intellitics Blog)
• The Open Government Directive in PDF form (White House Blog)
• Various agencies' open government memos (White House Blog)
• Announcement of Inter-Agency Working Groups on the OGD (White House Blog)
• Tracker for agency "open" pages (ProPublica)
• Open Government Directive Implementation Timeline (Sunlight Foundation)
• Transparency Roadmap and Deadlines (ProPublica)
• GSA's Wireframe Diagram for each agency's "Open" page plus discussion about it on the OpenGovBlog
• Official List of Senior Accountable Officials for the Open Government Directive
• Federal Agencies Using IdeaScale and Agency Contact Information for IdeaScale Public Comment Tool (GSA)
• White House Open Government Progress Report, December 2009.
• Cabinet-level commitments to open government from the Administration
• Notes from the White House Blog about the Administration's Modernizing Government Forum, January 2010
• Federal Agency FOIA Contacts
• Federal Agency Records Officers

Creative Commons License

In order to encourage knowledge sharing, we have released all text and ideas in the OpenGov Playbook under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.  This means that anyone can remix and reuse all original content created on this website.  Video, slide shows, and images, however, are the intellectual property of their original authors.  The logo for the OpenGov Playbook is released into the public domain for anyone to use.