| Description |
In December 2010, the Administration sought feedback on a concept to solicit ideas on a "next generation" for citizen consultation
- a government-wide software tool and process to elicit expert public participation. The platform would complement, and not
replace, Federal advisory committees and other ways of soliciting public opinion and expertise, and harnesstechnology to do
so in a more efficient manner. It was imagined that the platform, with the working title "ExpertNet," could: (1) enable government
officials to circulate notice of opportunities to participate in public consultations to members of the public with expertise
on a topic; and (2) provide those volunteer experts with a mechanism to provide useful, relevant, and manageable feedback
back to government officials. After further exploring the concept, the Administration recognized that a single government-wide
software platform would face implementation challenges. Soliciting expert citizen opinions, outside the process of the Federal
Advisory Committee Act, is as much a culture-change and business process challenge as it is a question of technology platform.
Furthermore, a number of private-sector platforms have emerged, such as Quora or Stack Overflow, which are online communities
that already have self-sustaining, vibrant ecosystems that enable users to ask citizen experts very specific questions. Finding
ways to take government questions to these and other relevant communities, rather than attempting to create a network from
scratch that requires the government to find and aggregate experts itself, will ultimately be more sustainable, dynamic, open,
and beneficial to the American people. While the ExpertNet commitment has not yet been met, the Administration is committed
to continuing to explore the concept in specific agencies that have mission objectives and business processes that will substantially
benefit from consulting citizen experts. While working on this commitment, the Administration greatly benefitted from fruitful
partnership with civil society organizations. The Administration learned that civil society truly seeks to be an equal partner
in this work, and that its advice - if solicited - is warmly given. In fact, in civil society's evaluation of this Plan commitment,
it said, "The government was given high scores on this section as the team was very open to civil society input on this commitment
and engaged in frank conversations and actively looked for ways to accomplish this difficult commitment."
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This platform will enable government officials to better communicate with citizens who have expertise on a pertinent topic.
It will give members of the public an opportunity to participate in a public consultation relevant to their areas of interest
and knowledge, and allow officials to pose questions to and interact with the public in order to receive useful information.
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