4.1.2: Existing DOI Collaboration Efforts
Other Information:
DOI is comprised of approximately 70,000 employees focused on delivering services in support of one of the most diverse sets
of missions in the Federal Government. The majority of DOI’s employees are citizen facing and provide direct citizen support.
Nowhere is this more readily observable than in the National Park Service. Technology provides yet another way to engage with
the public. The National Park Service Web presence is a remarkable tool in extending the reach of the National Park Service
and greatly facilitating access to information about many of America’s most treasured natural and cultural resources. The
information and services provided by the National Park Service provide a wealth of information that enhances Park visitor
experiences. The National Park Service Web site routinely scores at the top of government Web sites in terms of customer satisfaction.
Significant work has been performed to improve the site across the entire virtual National Park Service landscape covering
over 400 NPS units. The majority of DOI’s online visitation is to NPS Web sites. Last year, NPS received more than 76 million
visits to its websites, with more than 500 million page views during those visits. The web sites received more than 5.7 million
visits during the month of February 2010, with an average of 204,642.82 visits per day. Additional DOI collaboration efforts
include: ePlanning and PEPC DOI currently uses ePlanning (Bureau of Land management (BLM)) and Planning, Environment, and
Public Comment (PEPC) (National Parks Service (NPS)) to publish to and receive comments from the public on proposed management
of Federal lands. BLM and NPS developed these tools in part to help process the suggestions they receive from the public on
proposed land use plans. These systems enhance the bureaus ability to interact with the public by making this functionality
available on the Internet, thereby, thereby, removing the burden of having to visit an office or send comments via regular
mail. Reproduction costs are also reduced by making plans available online. Regulations.Gov DOI has a long tradition of public
involvement in it rulemaking process. DOI has collaboratively consolidated previous DOI specific solutions for this into participation
in the government-wide Regulations.Gov (http://www.regulations.gov) to promote access to responses for proposed rules. Recreation.Gov
The Department of the Interior is a participating partner and was integral in the development of Recreation.gov (http://www.recreation.gov).
Recreation.gov provides a single point of access to information about Federal natural resource related recreational activities
and allows the public to make reservations online. It provides a comprehensive source of information about thousands of Federal
recreation opportunities from across the country from many different agencies in a convenient central location. Information
about recreation opportunities on Federal lands can be sorted by location, sponsoring agency or area of recreation interest.
Volunteer.Gov/Gov DOI is the leading partner for Volunteer.Gov/Gov (http://www.volunteer.gov/gov). The Volunteer.Gov/Gov Website
is managed by DOI for natural resource agencies to provide a central point where citizens can view volunteer job opportunities
around the country available at different natural resource offices. GeoSpatial One-Stop An intergovernmental project managed
by DOI in support of the President's Initiative for E-government, Geospatial One-Stop builds on its partnership with the Federal
Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to improve the ability of the public and government to use geospatial information to support
the business of government and facilitate decision-making. In conjunction with the FGDC and its 19 member inter-agency membership
established under OMB Circular A-16, Geospatial One-Stop helps improve access to geospatial information: Through the Geospatial
One-Stop portal, http://gos2.geodata.gov/, anyone can access geospatial information from Federal agencies and a growing number
of state, local, tribal and private agencies through one complete and comprehensible portal. Building communities around data
categories through the efforts of "data stewardship leaders" and teams to seek out and highlight new and preeminent ways to
utilize geospatial tools. In conjunction with FGDC, Geospatial One-Stop facilitates standardization and intergovernmental
agreements on standards and interoperability. WaterSMART (Sustain and Manage America’s Resources for Tomorrow) The Bureau
of Reclamation (BOR) has been working with other Federal, state, regional and local government agencies with the common goal
of drought mitigation. This is supported by The Secure Water Act, which includes sections on “Water Conservation Initiative,”
and the “Water Conservation Challenge Grant Program,” which invites public and scientific collaboration. The site can be found
at: http://www.usbr.gov/WaterSMART/. Western States Water Council The BOR provides federal liaison for the Department to the
Western States Water Council (WSWC) (http://www.westgov.org/wswc/), whose mission is (1) to accomplish effective cooperation
among western states in the conservation, development and management of water resources; (2) to maintain vital state prerogatives,
while identifying ways to accommodate legitimate federal interests; (3) to provide a forum for the exchange of views, perspectives,
and experiences among member states; and (4) to provide analysis of federal and state developments in order to assist member
states in evaluating impacts of federal laws and programs and the effectiveness of state laws and policies. Twitter Earthquake
Detection The United States Geographical Survey (USGS) has developed the Twitter Earthquake Detection (TED) (http://www.twitter.com/USGSted).
This solution is the first Government case study by Twitter 101. In this exploratory effort, this tool gathers real-time,
earthquake-related messages from the social networking site Twitter and applies place, time, and key word filtering to gather
geo-located accounts of tremors. This approach provides rapid first-impression narratives and photos from people at the hazard’s
location. The potential for use of this tool for earthquake detection in populated but sparsely seismically-instrumented regions
is also being investigated. Social networking technologies are providing the general public with anecdotal earthquake hazard
information before scientific information has been published from authoritative sources. People local to an event are able
to publish information via these technologies within seconds of their occurrence. In contrast, scientific alerts can take
between 2 to 20 minutes. By adopting and embracing new technologies and the USGS approaches can augment its earthquake response
products and the delivery of hazard information.
Indicator(s):
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