8.1: Public Participation Tool

Enhance usability and customer interaction through Treasury's open government website.

Other Information:

Treasury's open government website continues to evolve, and various improvements are underway to enhance usability and customer interaction, including: * Access - comply with Section 508 and ADA standards, especially with respect to improving access for those with vision impairments. (see http://www.section508.gov and http://www.ada.gov ) * Search engine functionality – developing or working within the framework of the federal metadata standard, if available, to promote effective searching and tracking of authorship. (see GPO’s metatdata standards at : http://www.gpo.gov/ppt/DLC2008FallTechnical.ppt?bcsi_scan_9AA99EB32CAE9A8A=0&bcsi_scan_filename=DLC2008FallTechnical.ppt ) * Navigability/ “Look – continuously assess and improve the “look and Feel” (e.g., see BPD’s feel” of the website) to maintain ease of use. * Privacy concerns - One corollary to expanding the release of Government information is to ensure that information protected under the Privacy Act remains safeguarded. Managing privacy concerns involves monitoring the collection of personally identifiable information (PII), notifying the public through disclaimers and privacy statements, and examining tracking technologies. Areas requiring review include third-party linking, policy compliance, visitor tracking, and data collection. Citizen Feedback - The feedback received from the public during the development period of our open government plan was reviewed and assessed for incorporation into this plan. Many of the ideas, though not directly related to the development of our open government plan, were related to various programs within Treasury's operations and have been forwarded to the appropriate program areas for discussion. Some of the comments were able to be incorporated into our standard operating procedures for evaluating ideas and information to determine if they support one of the core open government principles, for example James wrote that agencies should ask themselves the following questions when considering new practices or identifying information, including: * If this proposal were accepted, would it be likely that government would be more open and accessible? * Does this request represent a request for data, improved quality data, government accountability, or is it a petition, suggestion for improvement, a collaboration, or a new way of doing business? Drew states "I think it would also be useful for Treasury to publish the following data (historical and current) on its Web site: 1) rates of exchange (could also include links to the following sites):FRB: http://www.federalreserve.gov/RELEASES/H10/Hist/Interet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/treasuryreportin19943unit, 2) public debt information (foreign-owned included) and M0, M1, M2... money supply information, and 3) ready access to other data included in the Treasury Bulletinhttp://www.fms.treas.gov/bulletin/index.html. As stated under "Strategic Action Plan for Data Quality and Transparency of the Treasury Data Inventory", we have provided some of these links directly from Treasury's open government website.

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

Content