8.2: Open Government Public Engagement Tool

Offer major federal agencies an online engagement tool to gather ideas from the public, enable others to comment on those ideas, and allow voting on the ideas.

Other Information:

The Open Government Directive required that federal agencies seek employee and public feedback in the development of their open government plans. To meet this need, the Office of Management and Budget tasked GSA with offering major federal agencies a compliant online engagement tool that could gather ideas from the public, enable others to comment on those ideas, and allow voting on the ideas so that the best ideas rise to the top for agency review. The GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communication created a Center for New Media and Citizen Engagement to help agencies throughout the federal government comply with the president’s Open Government Directive and its very aggressive timetable. The first step was to identify a tool that could be modified for use by every agency, could be put in place quickly, and would be easy to learn to use. In six weeks, GSA identified and customized a tool that all agencies could use to engage the public online. IdeaScale, one of the providers that amended its terms of service, offered a product that agencies could use to engage with the public. With a quick review of the tool’s capabilities and acceptance of the amended terms of service, GSA was able to get the tool up and running quickly. GSA performed the policy and clearance steps to meet federal regulations and requirements, configured and designed the tool for use by agencies, conducted user testing, remediated problems that limited accessibility of electronic and information technology accessible to persons with disabilities, and provided ongoing support for agencies during the online engagement. GSA’s Web Manager University offered free training for all agencies. As a result, 23 agencies and offices adapted the IdeaScale tool and launched their public dialogues by the 60-day deadline. From Feb. 6 to March 19, 2010, GSA provided the tool to 22 of 24 major federal agencies and to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to use to solicit online public feedback regarding their open government plans. This tool helped agencies meet a key milestone in the Open Government Directive, introduced many agencies to their first online engagement with the public, and built capacity and community for sustained online engagement throughout federal government. More than 1,400 ideas, 3,200 comments, and 32,000 votes from more than 6,400 users had been logged across these 23 simultaneous open government dialogues by March 19. The out-of-pocket cost of this major public-facing initiative totaled about $10,000, significantly less than individual agencies would have spent if they had had to seek out the expertise and infrastructure to stand up their own public engagement sites. The consistency of using the same approach across government was an added benefit. GSA is working to transition administration of this online engagement tool directly to agencies so that they can own and build upon this critical capability for online engagement. GSA shared all technical configuration documents, graphics files, policy documents, test results, outreach tools, and engagement techniques online at http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/open.shtml. GSA also established a community of practice in government online engagements by convening and leading an interagency community of more than 130 moderators and new media points of contact. This effort also nurtured agency-led innovations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s real-time OpenGov Tracker at http://www.opengovtracker.com/ and the Small Business Administration’s public comment process workflow, http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/open/Moderation_Workflow_Diagram.pptx. GSA will post and regularly update data sets with the full text of ideas and comments, as well as the number of votes and user, for each agency on WebContent.gov. http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/open/data_reports.shtml. These data sets will ultimately be made available on Data.gov. Twenty-three agencies now have the capability to use this and other engagement tools to continue dialogs with the public. Agencies can use these tools to implement their open government plans and engrain a culture of openness throughout their agencies.

Stakeholder(s):

• Office of Management and Budget


• Major Federal Agencies


• The Public

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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