The third phase of public participation in generating recommendations for the federal Open Government Directive wrapped up on July 6. The final phase sought draft recommendations within three broad topics – transparency, collaboration, and participation – which President Barack Obama identified in his January memo as the three principles of open government.

The transparency topic generated many thoughtful and useful recommendations. The administration proposed five categories within the overall topic: Transparency Principles, Transparency Governance, Open Government Operations, Data Transparency, and Information Access. This was the result of two earlier phases, one called a "brainstorming" phase to generate ideas and the other a "discussion" phase to share thoughts about the top ideas from the first phase.

Transparency Principles

The first category asked participants to define transparency. What does government transparency mean? What are its goals? What should be the priorities for improving transparency? The leading vote getter – the definition from the 21st Century Right-to-Know Recommendations (an effort spearheaded by OMB Watch) – stated:

An informed public is essential to democracy and can help create a more effective, accountable government. Transparency is a powerful tool to demonstrate to the public that the government is spending our money wisely, that politicians are not in the pocket of lobbyists and special interest groups, that government is operating in an accountable manner, and that decisions are made to ensure the safety and protection of all Americans.

Participants submitted 24 other responses in this category.

Another highly rated submission, also from the 21st Century Right-to-Know Recommendations, was a set of basic principles for government transparency, including proactive dissemination, timely disclosure, and clarity and usefulness of information, as well as making that information indexed and findable. Another top-scoring recommendation combined ideas from several submissions to discuss the importance of transparency in a functioning democracy and stressed what the transparency should accomplish – it should inform citizens about government actions, inform decision making, and provide context for evaluating data. Another submission offered principles derived from a survey of 500 government financial principles in the U.S. and Canada. Among the eight financial transparency principles were understanding what information people want and delivering it, being as open as possible without creating risk, and investing transparency money wisely.

Transparency Governance

The administration also requested input in the category of transparency governance. It asked for recommendations concerning ways in which institutional changes could bring about a culture of transparency. The government appeared to be interested in structures and policies that would ensure thoughtful and considered progress toward transparency. Among the ideas submitted in previous phases that intrigued the administration were creating a transparency officer within each agency and the use of online dashboards to more easily convey information to the public.

The highest-rated recommendation in this category stressed the need for better protecting the rights of whistleblowers who disclose information about waste, fraud, and abuse when other governmental checks and balances fail. The second-ranked recommendation advocated for improving those checks and balances with the establishment of incentives and enforcement mechanisms for transparency. The third-ranked recommendation proposed modernization of agency information technology (IT) systems to better address the needs related to information access in the Internet age. The fourth-place recommendation called for establishment of design principles for data, including access to machine-readable data, open standards and formats, and reduced complexity of data, to allow it to be more easily distributed over the Internet. The top three recommendations were made by the 21st Century Right-to-Know Recommendations.

Open Government Operations

The third category of transparency recommendations sought strategies for a more open government. The administration requested ideas that would help change the way business is done in Washington, such as rethinking the relationship between the government employee and the public. The administration also wanted help identifying what information would be most useful in holding government accountable. Input on balancing transparency with the need for confidential, trusted spaces and cost of implementation was also requested.

The most popular, by far, of the 23 ideas submitted was a recommendation to strengthen whistleblower protection legislation so that government employees could expose waste, fraud, and abuse without fear of retaliation. Comments on the whistleblower recommendation noted that it was a legislative proposal, which fell outside the president’s control. Despite that issue, the recommendation received top votes, with several commenters recommending reworking it into an executive policy proposal. The recommendation was made by a representative of the Make It Safe Coalition, an alliance of good government groups working to secure better whistleblower protections.

Other high-scoring recommendations in this category suggested that the records of meetings between government officials and outside entities should be made public; that campaign finance reform was necessary; and that there should be databases with information on public revenues, allegations of contractor misconduct, and the backgrounds of the government officials who run each agency. One suggested a commission to work out the gray area between the right to privacy and the need for transparency. There was also widespread sentiment that the government should continue to solicit public input.

Data Transparency

Another category the administration wanted to address was data transparency. The quick launch of Data.gov, to provide greater access to raw data and online tools for tracking and analyzing the data, indicated the administration’s level of interest in this area. The government requested suggestions on how agencies should be directed to supply more data for Data.gov, and which data they should provide. The materials also asked for input on government-wide approaches to data and metadata that would ensure data transparency.

Data transparency received the least amount of input, with only seven recommendations submitted. The top-rated recommendation advocated for machine-readable data and metadata for three major types of public data – public reference data, public records, and public statistics. It came from the 21st Century Right-to-Know Recommendations. The second-ranked recommendation focused on tasks chief technology officers should pursue, including providing access to well defined bulk files, use of interactive and transparent Web 2.0 technologies, assessments of agencies’ capabilities, and surveying the high-priority information needs of users.

Other ideas submitted under this category included a recommendation that science.gov be re-envisioned as one-stop location for government scientific information that would help citizens identify government experts and would organize scientific activities by topic and geographic area. Another suggestion took inspiration from the popularity of Google Earth and recommended the creation of a Government Universe map with 6 galaxies – the Executive, Congressional, Judicial, States, Business Sectors, and Public Sector galaxies. Each galaxy would have its major components circling around it as stars, and users could drill down to access to government information in that area.

Information Access

The final transparency category for which the administration wanted specific recommendations was improving the government's ability to disclose information proactively. Processing requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can be a costly endeavor for many agencies, so the government has increasingly accepted proactive dissemination as a way to both serve the public interest and save costs. The administration requested input on translating the need for better policy and compliance into actionable recommendations.

This category received 15 proposals, of which the top-rated recommendation suggested modernizing the FOIA system by creating a centralized digital system to streamline the process and better comply with requirements under E-FOIA to post repeatedly requested materials online. The second-ranked recommendation focused on improving electronic records management in the government and establishing requirements that electronic records be maintained in a searchable form. The third-ranked proposal recommended launching an interagency effort to track online the interactions between government and lobbyists and others who wield monetary influence. All three recommendations came from the 21st Century Right-to-Know Recommendations.

Other suggestions in this category included increasing public access to the results of publicly funded research and establishing a standard format for FOIA archives. Another proposal advanced the idea of creating a global navigation (taxonomic) index to organize all governmental offices and information into a framework that would allow users to easily search and locate federal information.

Other Recommendations

A sixth category asked for any transparency recommendations that did not fit into the previous categories. These 16 responses were principally related to national security. Recommendations called for reform of controlled unclassified information (CUI) to ensure adequate public disclosure and the preservation of checks and balances; classification reform to avoid over-classification and the preemption of state and local sunshine laws; the use of the state secrets privilege only when there is a reasonable risk of significant harm resulting from disclosure and never using the privilege to cover up illegal or unconstitutional conduct; and conducting regular oversight of security secrecy. All of the top-rated items came from the 21st Century Right-to-Know Recommendations.