Monday 29 November 2010

Open Government - O'Reilly Media

Open Government

Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice

By
Daniel Lathrop, Laurel Ruma
Publisher:
O'Reilly Media
Released:
February 2010
Pages:
432

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Description

In a world where web services can make real-time data accessible to anyone, how can the government leverage this openness to improve its operations and increase citizen participation and awareness? Through a collection of essays and case studies, leading visionaries and practitioners both inside and outside of government share their ideas on how to achieve and direct this emerging world of online collaboration, transparency, and participation.

Full Description

In a world where web services can make real-time data accessible to anyone, how can the government leverage this openness to improve its operations and increase citizen participation and awareness? Through a collection of essays and case studies, leading visionaries and practitioners both inside and outside of government share their ideas on how to achieve and direct this emerging world of online collaboration, transparency, and participation.

Contributions and topics include:

  • Beth Simone Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer for open government, "The Single Point of Failure"
  • Jerry Brito, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, "All Your Data Are Belong to Us: Liberating Government Data"
  • Aaron Swartz, cofounder of reddit.com, OpenLibrary.org, and BoldProgressives.org, "When Is Transparency Useful?"
  • Ellen S. Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, "Disrupting Washington's Golden Rule"
  • Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org, "By the People"
  • Douglas Schuler, president of the Public Sphere Project, "Online Deliberation and Civic Intelligence"
  • Howard Dierking, program manager on Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet Web platform team, "Engineering Good Government"
  • Matthew Burton, Web entrepreneur and former intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, "A Peace Corps for Programmers"
  • Gary D. Bass and Sean Moulton, OMB Watch, "Bringing the Web 2.0 Revolution to Government"
  • Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, "Defining Government 2.0: Lessons Learned from the Success of Computer Platforms"

Open Government editors:

Daniel Lathrop is a former investigative projects reporter with the Seattle Post Intelligencer who's covered politics in Washington state, Iowa, Florida, and Washington D.C. He's a specialist in campaign finance and "computer-assisted reporting" -- the practice of using data analysis to report the news.
Laurel Ruma is the Gov 2.0 Evangelist at O'Reilly Media. She is also co-chair for the Gov 2.0 Expo.

Table of Contents

  1. Chapter 1 A Peace Corps for Programmers

    1. Tipping Point: The Extinction of Pencils

    2. Competition Is Critical to Any Ecosystem

    3. Creating a Developer Corps

    4. Conclusion

    5. About the Author

  2. Chapter 2 Government As a Platform

    1. Government As a Platform

    2. Lesson 1: Open Standards Spark Innovation and Growth

    3. Lesson 2: Build a Simple System and Let It Evolve

    4. Lesson 3: Design for Participation

    5. A Robustness Principle for Government

    6. Lesson 4: Learn from Your “Hackers”

    7. Lesson 5: Data Mining Allows You to Harness Implicit Participation

    8. Lesson 6: Lower the Barriers to Experimentation

    9. Lesson 7: Lead by Example

    10. Practical Steps for Government Agencies

    11. About the Author

  3. Chapter 3 By the People

    1. About the Author

  4. Chapter 4 The Single Point of Failure

    1. The Closed Model of Decision Making

    2. New Technologies and Civic Life

    3. Participatory Democratic Theory in the Age of Networks

    4. About the Author

  5. Chapter 5 Engineering Good Government

    1. The Articles of Confederation and the Stovepipe Antipattern

    2. Continued Maintenance: The Blob and Confederacy

    3. Conclusion

    4. About the Author

  6. Chapter 6 Enabling Innovation for Civic Engagement

    1. Citizen Initiatives Lead the Way

    2. Providing for Reuse and Innovation

    3. Data Authenticity Down the Line

    4. Why Bother with Bulk?

    5. Conclusion

    6. About the Authors

  7. Chapter 7 Online Deliberation and Civic Intelligence

    1. Definitions and Assertions

    2. Democracy, Deliberation, and the Internet

    3. Findings and Issues

    4. Conclusion

    5. About the Author

  8. Chapter 8 Open Government and Open Society

    1. Transparency’s Moment?

    2. The Dark Side of Open Government

    3. The Missing Diagnosis

    4. Targeted Transparency

    5. A Matter of Politics

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Authors

  9. Chapter 9 “You Can Be the Eyes and Ears”: Barack Obama and the Wisdom of Crowds

    1. Change.gov Shows How to Change the Gov

    2. “You Can Be the Eyes and Ears”

    3. Recovery.gov Site Still Under Construction

    4. Online Town Hall or “Participation Theater”?

    5. Open Data and Open Government

    6. Co-creation, Co-optation, or Collision?

    7. About the Author

  10. Chapter 10 Two-Way Street: Government with the People

    1. Pockets of Excellence: The Goverati

    2. Conclusion

    3. About the Author

  11. Chapter 11 Citizens’ View of Open Government

    1. The First “We President”

    2. The Internet Has Made Us Lazy

    3. Toward a Findable Government

    4. Advanced Citizenship

    5. Conclusion

    6. About the Author

  12. Chapter 12 After the Collapse: Open Government and the Future of Civil Service

    1. The Coasean Collapse

    2. The Long Tail of Public Policy

    3. Patch Culture

    4. The End of Objectivity

    5. Two Preconditions to Government As Platform: Capacity for Self-Organization and Collaboration

    6. Extend the Network

    7. The Next Civil Service Culture: The Gift Economy

    8. Conclusion

    9. About the Author

  13. Chapter 13 Democracy, Under Everything

    1. Many Voices, Many Messages, One Government

    2. My Idea

    3. Revealing Obscured Government Data

    4. Improving Communication without Being Crushed by Email

    5. How to Improve Civic Engagement

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Author

  14. Chapter 14 Emergent Democracy

    1. Democracy As a Scaling Mechanism

    2. Limiting Factors and the Internet

    3. Building an Emergent Democracy

    4. The Road to Emergent Democracy

    5. About the Author

  15. Chapter 15 Case Study: Tweet Congress

    1. Tweet Congress: Build an App, Start a Movement

    2. Starting the Movement: We Are All Lobbyists Now

    3. So, Who Gets It?

    4. Impact

    5. Conclusion

    6. About the Authors

  16. Chapter 16 Entrepreneurial Insurgency: Republicans Connect With the American People

    1. Entrepreneurial Insurgency and Congress

    2. Congress Tweets, Too

    3. I YouTube, You YouTube

    4. Social Media and the Fight for Transparency

    5. Conclusion

    6. About the Author

  17. Chapter 17 Disrupting Washington’s Golden Rule

    1. The Bad Old Days: When Insiders Ruled

    2. This Is the Mashable Now

    3. What Comes Next

    4. About the Author

  18. Chapter 18 Case Study: GovTrack.us

    1. Opening Legislative Data

    2. Screen Scraping Congress

    3. Engaging the GovTrack Community

    4. Conclusion

    5. About the Author

  19. Chapter 19 Case Study: FollowTheMoney.org

    1. Accessing Political Donor Data Fraught with Problems

    2. The National Institute on Money in State Politics’ Role in the Fight for Greater Transparency

    3. Bolstering the Spirit of Public Disclosure Laws

    4. State-Level Transparency Faces Serious Challenges

    5. In an Ideal World: Recommendations for Open Data

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Author

  20. Chapter 20 Case Study: MAPLight.org

    1. Why We Founded MAPLight.org

    2. MAPLight.org’s Unique Contribution

    3. Nuts and Bolts: Using MAPLight.org

    4. Barriers to Transparency

    5. Conclusion

    6. About the Author

  21. Chapter 21 Going 2.0: Why OpenSecrets.org Opted for Full Frontal Data Sharing

    1. The Decision to Let Go of the Data

    2. It’s Not Easy Being Open

    3. Creating a New Model for Transparency

    4. The Future Is Now

    5. Conclusion

    6. About the Author

  22. Chapter 22 All Your Data Are Belong to Us: Liberating Government Data

    1. Liberating Government Data: Carl Malamud Versus the Man

    2. Disclosing Government Data: Paper Versus the Internet

    3. Accessing Government Data: Open Distribution Versus Jealous Control

    4. Demanding Government Data: Public Money Versus Private Research

    5. RECAP: Freeing PACER Documents for Public Use

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Author

  23. Chapter 23 Case Study: Many Eyes

    1. Policy

    2. From Policy to Politicians

    3. Visual Literacy

    4. Conclusion

    5. About the Authors

  24. Chapter 24 My Data Can’t Tell You That

    1. The How and Why of Data Collection

    2. Federal Data: Approximations Galore

    3. Good Data Doesn’t Mean Good Results

    4. Conclusion

    5. About the Author

  25. Chapter 25 When Is Transparency Useful?

    1. Sharing Documents with the Public

    2. Generating Databases for the Public

    3. Interpreting Databases for the Public

    4. An Alternative

    5. About the Author

  26. Chapter 26 Transparency Inside Out

    1. Complexity Creates Opacity

    2. Transparency, Meet Institutional Inertia

    3. Kaleidoscope IT: One-Off Apps Obscure Information

    4. A Market Focused on Proposals, Not Products

    5. Framing the Window

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Author

  27. Chapter 27 Bringing the Web 2.0 Revolution to Government

    1. Government Transparency: Three Hurdles

    2. Putting It All Together: Disclosure of Federal Spending

    3. Conclusion

    4. About the Authors

  28. Chapter 28 Toads on the Road to Open Government Data

    1. What Is Government?

    2. Data Collection

    3. Exposing the Soul of Government

    4. Conclusion

    5. About the Author

  29. Chapter 29 Open Government: The Privacy Imperative

    1. Privacy-Enhancing Practices

    2. Conclusion

    3. About the Authors

  30. Chapter 30 Freedom of Information Acts: Promises and Realities

    1. The Act and Amendments

    2. Conclusion

    3. About the Author

  31. Chapter 31 Gov→Media→People

    1. Crowdsourcing in Action

    2. Conclusion

    3. About the Author

  32. Chapter 32 Open Source Software for Open Government Agencies

    1. Advantages of FLOSS for Government and Public Agencies

    2. Best Practices: Management

    3. Best Practices: Technical

    4. Best Practices: Social

    5. Make It Easy to Experiment and Learn

    6. Conclusion

    7. References

    8. About the Authors

  33. Chapter 33 Why Open Digital Standards Matter in Government

    1. Badly Used Technology Hinders Progress

    2. The Digital Age Explained

    3. Standards and the Problems with Digital Technology

    4. The Huge Positive Potential of Digital Technologies

    5. Free and Open Standards and Software: The Digital Basis of Open Government

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Author

  34. Chapter 34 Case Study: Utah.gov

    1. A Historical Perspective

    2. What Today’s Landscape Looks Like

    3. Champions Discovered in All Branches of State Government

    4. The Dramatic Shift to Web 2.0 Principles and Tools

    5. Making Data More Accessible

    6. Conclusion

    7. About the Author

  1. Appendix Memo from President Obama on Transparency and Open Government

  2. Colophon

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