1.1: Public Voice

Give the public a direct voice in the creation of this Open Government Plan.

Other Information:

PUBLIC ROLE IN OPEN GOVERNMENT ACTIVITIES - You, the public, had a direct voice in the creation of this Open Government Plan, a clear sign of the increasing importance of public engagement and community relations programs at the Department of Defense. We encouraged public interaction on the Department’s homepage (www.defense.gov) and made it the central feature of our Open Government homepage. We also promoted our activities using the Department’s presence on Facebook and Twitter. To solicit public input and suggestions for this plan, the Department launched its Open Government Web site (www.defense.gov/open) in early February, including a platform for the public to suggest ideas, comment and vote on each other’s ideas. As of April 7th, members of the public made 92 suggestions, over 100 comments on others’ suggestions and voted over 600 times for or against ideas. The Department is closely reviewing ideas posted to the site, and is committed to carrying out several of the most popular suggestions. Specifically: Web Site Directory. One user suggested an improved directory of the Department’s Web sites allowing visitors to Defense.gov to easily find content. As part of an upcoming revision to the Defense.gov homepage, we will be working to make the vast amounts of content more easily navigable by visitors not familiar with the complex organizational structure of the Department. Better Contract Data. Another user suggested “a regularly updated dataset with contract information available for download,” as an improvement on existing, regularly updated contract information posted on the Department’s Web site. While massive amounts of this type of information are available in various places on the Internet, we will work to create easier access to easy-to-digest, machine-readable, and regularly-updated contract and spending data on our Web site. Casualty Data. Currently the Department routinely releases information about each military casualty in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (name, rank, service, hometown, unit, etc.). However, currently there is not a database or spreadsheet consolidating detailed casualty information in one place, making it unnecessarily complicated to examine and analyze the dataset as a whole. In response to public suggestions and interest, we will provide the data in a more accessible format in the near future.

Stakeholder(s):

• The Public

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

Content