4.7.2: Open Government Alignment

Support the core principles of open government

Other Information:

DOI’s Climate Change information management project will support the core principles of open government in the following ways: Transparency This initiative will enhance transparency by improving access to information. Access to public climate change information will improve understanding of the impacts of climate change. Opportunities to share ideas and insights will enhance public confidence in DOI’s work related to climate change and impacts on natural resource management. Participation This initiative will provide improved capabilities for public comment and utilization of DOI’s climate change data by using an ideation tool that allows for public ranking and comment on ideas relative to climate change information. Online public dialogs will be provided to promote public interaction and feedback to Government data owners. Additional public participation will occur through prizes and challenges to develop applications utilizing climate change data. Collaboration Established cross-government climate change metadata standards and increased opportunities for collaboration are primary objectives of this initiative. Accomplishing this objective will require close coordination with other Federal Agencies pursuing climate change information management efforts. Additionally, through work with the Secretary’s priority of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, this project will collaborate with numerous organizations outside the Federal Government, including other universities, not for profit organizations, and citizens. Measuring Results This initiative will be measured in a variety of ways, including: Successful development of a cross-government metadata standard for climate change data; Identification and inventory of existing DOI sources of climate change data, information, and expertise. As part of the identification of governmental climate change information, DOI will assist other agencies with use an audit tool to identify and characterize already public data assets in a useful manner. It would scan through Federal domains and formulate an index of potential datasets and build reports to deliver to agencies; Collection of metadata into Government-wide catalog (Data.Gov); Development of sub-catalog to leverage climate specific metadata elements; Number of public ideas received; Number of entrants received from prizes/challenges; and Number of downloads of climate change related datasets. Prizes and Challenges In accordance with the March 8, 2010 memo regarding “Guidance on the Use of Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government,” DOI’s flagship initiative intends to use prizes and challenges in order to increase participation and collaboration while reaching the Department’s goals. Once selected datasets are published to the catalog, challenges or prizes may be pursued to promote innovative uses of data. Public use of this data will promote the availability of climate change data and may provide insights into previously not considered uses of the data. The initiative will work closely with climate change scientists and resource managers to identify areas of interest that may help promote increased use and understanding of information. Information may be combined with other information through “mash-ups” that show correlations not previously considered. Prizes and challenges would follow all applicable rules and regulations but would be as broadly accessible as permissible within those constraints. Directions on ways to compete, judging criteria, prizes, and other remaining details will be further defined as part of this initiative.

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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