Oversight

From Nextgov.com: Will the White House give CIOs more power in the fiscal 2011 budget?

Some see language in fiscal 2010 spending bills as a signal that the Obama administration will grant IT chiefs more spending authority, while others say wait and see.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: White House's online contests for federal employees have roots in Virginia

The commonwealth asked employees for ideas to streamline government and used the Web to post metrics for how public services are performing.

Features

Recovery Mode

Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney and his team had to find an accurate and public way to account for stimulus spending—and quickly.

News

From Nextgov.com: Government breaks new ground in Web site satisfaction

Analysts say the achievement has more to do with long-term improvements to sites than the Obama administration’s focus on technology.

News

From Nextgov.com: Treasury improves communications about financial bailout program, GAO says

But critics say the department doesn’t show more important data such as how recipients have used the funds and how much the investments are worth.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: Agencies will be expected to measure transparency results

Open government strategies should include metrics based on input from employees, GSA official says.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: Obama administration unveils Recovery.gov makeover

Redesigned stimulus-tracking site has pictorial representations of spending data, advanced search functions and multimedia tutorials, but no data sets yet.

Oversight

White House kicks off budget-cutting contest for federal employees

Winner will meet with President Obama and the submission will be included in the Executive Office's fiscal 2011 budget proposal.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: Report gives Obama administration mixed review on secrecy practices

White House receives high and low marks for transparency memo, seeking input on classification policy and for its overhaul of stimulus tracking Web site, open government group says.

News

From Nextgov.com: Wealthy, well-educated more likely to engage in online civic activities

The findings from a study indicate the Obama administration might have more work to do to meet its goal of increasing broad public involvement in policymaking.

News

From Nextgov.com: Administration has yet to make proposed security policy revisions public

Transparency groups want an opportunity to comment before suggestions for preventing over-classification of government information are sent to the president.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: NASA could outsource flights and insource IT

While budget woes leave future space missions in question, the department’s cloud computing programs could help curb costs.

News

From Nextgov.com: Feds get tips on social media outreach

Defense department leads the way in connecting with bloggers, news aggregators and other Web sites.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: Obama’s e-health agenda receives cash infusion

Administration officials this past week have publicly tied the benefits of health IT to the president’s larger, more controversial health care reform effort.

News

From Nextgov.com: USDA unit bans browsers other than Internet Explorer

Decision to enforce policy takes employees who work on public Web sites by surprise.

News

From Nextgov.com: Is administration more interested in transparency of Congress?

Some open government advocates question whether the White House is moving more quickly to disclose legislative matters while delaying the same for the executive branch.

Features

Cloudy Outlook

The impact of Obama IT initiatives like a shift to Web-based services is as yet unknown.

News

From Nextgov.com: State deploys low tech social media to reach those without computers

Stripped-down process for town hall meetings includes displaying presentations in text-only formats, printing transcripts and soliciting questions via text messaging.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: GSA posts Recovery.gov winning contract proposal

Much of the information in Smartronix's winning proposal was redacted to protect competitive information.

Oversight

From Nextgov.com: GSA will retain oversight of contract to build Recovery.gov

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board opted to allow the agency to manage the contract to shorten the project’s time frame and rely on its contracting skills.