Sunlight Labs

On Saturday, the White House released its Open Government Dashboard. It features a big chart with 29 agencies on it measured by four attributes. I suspect that the technology behind this dashboard is likely an excel file, alongside staffers or interns checking each agency website for compliance. It's a start of something-- but a chart does not a dashboard make.

Here in Washington DC, amidst a couple feet of snow (with more on the way!), Mayor Fenty released Track, a real way for citizens to watch their government's performance. Both substance wise and technically, it out-atheletes the White House's Open Government dashboard.

More on how after the jump

This is part two of a two-part post. Part one covers the basics of web standards and progressive enhancement and Section 508 standards §1194.22 (a)-(f). Part two covers Section 508 standards §1194.22 (g)-(p).

Good news! Despite the excessive amount of time it took me to finish this post, Section 508 compliance is STILL easier than you think. Compliance does not preclude you from having an amazing web site. By following modern web standards, it is possible to create a site that is inherently accessible. Let's continue where we left off with (g)!

Last week Clay wrote about how we'll be evaluating /open pages released under the OGD. The post ended with a series of considerations that we think are important: completeness, primacy, timeliness, accessibility, machine readability, availability without registration, being non-proprietary, freedom from licensing restrictions, permanence and obtainability.

One thing is conspicuously missing from the list, though: quality.

Last week's Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision was a game-changer in terms of corporate money in politics. In short, corporations will be allowed to freely spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a candidate, just as long as there is no direct coordination with that candidate's campaign. Unprecedented amounts of corporate money will now flow into our political process. But here at Sunlight, we're focusing on the disclosure aspects of the decision. The majority opinion stated:

With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.

While the decision doesn't mandate "prompt disclosure", it does strongly recommend it. So what does disclosure at Internet speed look like?

A couple of months ago, as part of our Redesigning the Government series, we took a stab at redesigning and rethinking the FCC website, which resulted in some good discussion between our organizations. Yesterday the FCC released their long awaited Reboot site, which by their definition is an attempt to be “your portal to take part in improving citizen interactions with the Federal Communications Commission”. The questions we've been asking ourselves while evaluating their new site are: what exactly does the above statement mean, what have they done well, and what are the things we think they still need to consider while moving forward.

Silona Bonewald from citability.org is holding a hackathon here in Washington, DC. You should consider attending. Citability is seeking to make it easy for government to publish documents online in a citable way.

Last month President Obama unveiled his Open Government Directive to create further openness within the executive branch. This directive requires federal agencies to show how they are working toward transparency, public participation, and collaboration by requiring the addition of new web pages – "/open" pages – onto their existing sites. With the first deadline in the directive quickly approaching, we've put together our thoughts on what these pages should look like.

Here at Sunlight, we've handled lots of hackathons for the developer community-- especially around Open Government. Some have been productive, some have not. By now, I think we've gotten it down to a particularly good set of principles and ideas to share. Below is a collection of those ideas that will help you run your event more smoothly, and hopefully get the most out of your event.

Remember: hackathons are not social engagements or consensus driven activities. They're about doing work. Habitat for Humanity, for instance, doesn't get bunches of people together to talk about how they should build a house at the beginning of the day. They identify skillsets and put people to work as quickly as possible, often times before the volunteer event starts, and have a plan for what roles people can play before they get there.

Your attendees will show up eager to work, and more than likely they've sacrificed some of their time so that they could feel useful. It is your job to make them leave there feeling useful. That means being able to put them directly to work. That means:

Right now, we're focused on one thing: watching agencies put up their /Open page. We built a little tool that allows us to check in with each agency daily and notify us when it is up. When we put it up, agencies like the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Agriculture quickly put up placeholder pages to get a green check-box next to their name. Silly.

The point of the Open Tracker not to evaluate, it's to let us know when we can start evaluating and to encourage federal agencies to meet the deadline they're directed to meet.

While Haitian relief isn't core to Sunlight's mission, we decided it was OK to step out of bounds for a weekend to help out. This weekend, we saw around 150 people show up in our small office space and quickly get to work. To read about the projects that were worked on and where they're at, check out CrisisCommons.org.

The media picked up on it quite a bit-- getting across the point we've been driving at for over a year now: Developers have skills that can help all kinds of volunteer efforts, and they're willing to help out. Check out the story that American Public Media's Marketplace radio ran: Devising aid programs on their laptops.

We got a lot accomplished-- through a very driven and regimented development routine, 10 projects got strong starts, though the work isn't through yet. There's still so much to do and room for lots of your participation. So if you're free this weekend, consider contributing some of your time to one of the great projects at CrisisCommons.org.