RE: Americans’ Views on Open Government Data #opengov #opendata - Only 5% say very effective!

The observation "Relatively few Americans reported using government data sources for monitoring what is going on" is utterly unsurprising ... for the simple fact that is far too difficult to do.  

In the case of the Federal government, hardly anyone knows about the Perfomance.gov site (nor should they need to know about it) and, if they do, they know it is more about making the Administration "look" good than about reporting actual performance ... good, bad, and indifferent.

Even fewer know that agencies are  failing to comply with sections 2 & 10 of the GPRA Modernization Act (GPRAMA), which requires them to publish their strategic and performance plans and reports on their websites in machine-readable format -- preferably an open, standard, machine-readable format like StratML. http://xml.fido.gov/stratml/references/PL111-532StratML.htm#SEC2 & http://xml.fido.gov/stratml/references/PL111-532StratML.htm#SEC10 

Even if and, hopefully, when agencies do begin complying with the law and value-added intermediaries begin to leverage that open, machine-readable data to make it easy for citizens to discover and keep track of what is and is not "going on," relatively few are likely to do so.

However, leveraging the power of "social" media matured for business-quality usage via a standard like StratML, the power of the few will be greatly magnified ... and the results will begin to speak far more clearly for themselves ... to anyone who gives a hoot about what their government is trying to accomplish.

Ultimately, citizens should be free to use whatever tools, apps, and services *they* choose to discover and track progress on any public objective of interest to them, regardless of the level or agency of government involved.  If and, hopefully, when that occurs, they will have no one to blame but themselves if they fail to do so.  In the meantime, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Owen Ambur
Chair, AIIM StratML Committee
Co-Chair Emeritus, xml.gov CoP
Webmaster, FIRM
Profile on LinkedIn | Personal Home Page



-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Clift [mailto:clift@e-democracy.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2015 10:55 AM
To: newswire
Cc: brigade; muni-innovation@googlegroups.com; open-government@lists.okfn.org; OGP Civil Society group; liberationtech; eGovIG IG
Subject: Pew: Americans’ Views on Open Government Data #opengov #opendata - Only 5% say very effective!

Important survey just released:

      http://bit.ly/pewopengov

Discuss here:
       https://www.facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup/permalink/1625987174299539/



Pew Research Center: Americans’ Views on Open Government Data

The survey ... "captures public views at the emergent moment when new technology tools and techniques are being used to disseminate and capitalize on government data and specifically looks at:

* People’s level of awareness of government efforts to share data

* Whether these efforts translate into people using data to track government performance

* If people think government data initiatives have made, or have the potential to make, government perform better or improve accountability

* The more routine kinds of government-citizen online interactions, such as renewing licenses or searching for the hours of public facilities."

...

The top line numbers:

"Few Americans think governments are very effective in sharing data they collect with the public:

* Just 5% say the federal government does this very effectively, with another 39% saying the federal government does this somewhat effectively.

* 5% say state governments share data very effectively, with another 44% saying somewhat effectively.

* 7% say local governments share data very effectively, with another 45% responding somewhat effectively.

Somewhat larger numbers could think of examples in which their local government either did or did not do a good job providing information to the public:

* 19% of all Americans could think of an example where the local government did a good job providing information to the public about data it collects.

* 19% could think of an example where local government did not provide enough useful information about data and information to the public.

Relatively few Americans reported using government data sources for monitoring what is going on:

* 20% have used government sources to find information about student or teacher performance.

* 17% have used government sources to look for information on the performance of hospitals or health care providers.

* 7% have used government sources to find out about contracts between government agencies and outside firms."

...

I have lots to say about this ... another time:
     https://www.facebook.com/groups/opengovgroup/permalink/1625987174299539/

The missing question if we want to build public trust in government in my view is whether the public would like government to provide secure individual online access to private and public government data held about you. Estonia does this, so can the rest of the world.


Steven Clift  -  Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
   clift@e-democracy.org  -  +1.612.234.7072
   @democracy  -  http://linkedin.com/in/netclift

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Received on Thursday, 23 April 2015 17:31:42 UTC