Call to Governments: Six Strategies for Enhancing Transparency and Community Information
Call to Governments: Six Strategies for Enhancing Transparency and Community Information
How then can governments design websites that meet the information needs of communities? What can be learned from federal transparency efforts in the creation and promotion of local government websites? This section offers six strategies to facilitate the realization of Knight Commission Recommendation 4.
Strategy 1: Convene a national working group of chief information and technology officers to discuss and decide upon technical and operational procedures that mitigate changing environments and circumstances in the open government field.
Chief information and technology leaders face the trying task of developing the right strategic approaches for organizing and assembling tangible resources, such as computers and networks, and managing intangible resources that include employee skill, knowledge and organizational processes.
Uncertain or unorganized technological environments also constrain their choices and resources to support building and operating e-government services. This problem can be exacerbated rather than aided when the government wades into the marketplace and attempts to pick a format or technology to support. Governments must focus on the characteristics of the solutions they seek from the market rather than the particular technologies that market actors must employ. To be effective, governments must be equipped with the knowledge and subsequent capabilities to respond to the technical challenges associated with deploying new transparency and e-government-related tools, while at the same time having the ability and resources to deal with ongoing issues in the environment.
Organizations such as the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), whose mission is to foster government excellence through quality business practices, information management and technology policy, can play a vital role in solutions around suitable IT infrastructure, data standards, privacy processes and long-term open government investments.
Having this conversation through groups like NASCIO can also help technology leaders become conversant in how to provide data in normalized data formats and as metadata and enhance the data search process through portals or clearinghouses. These leaders can also advise upon the types of information that should be available to the general public. Finally, technology leaders should discuss issues related to cost based upon the time it takes to produce useful data feeds for the public, privacy issues that are raised by certain data sets and formats for public consumption of the data.
When problems arise among these stakeholders, an entity such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) could be called upon to mediate gridlocks. Ultimately, the partnership of national CIOs and CTOs could result in more realistic and feasible standards of design, operation, monitoring and performance to assist in the public technology sector.
This specific strategy calls for action within a formidable existing structure, and therefore requires very little investment. Sponsorship of conference participation for smaller cities and states or the development of a more formal working group within NASCIO can take on the task of developing operational standards.
Strategy 2: Create opportunities for developing public good applications that are sustainable through public-private partnerships or contests funded through philanthropic investments.
As discussed in the paper, governments can be slow in developing customer-facing applications that attempt to enhance their interactions with the public. While the citizen apps contests proved to be innovative ways to engage the public, the model is dependent on developers maintaining the application beyond the parameters of the contest. And developers often do not have an incentive to keep the sites up-to-date with no direct financial incentive after the award (Nichols, 2010). One interesting model for sustainable investment has been the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge Contest that awards as much as $5 million per year for innovative ideas that develop platforms, tools and services to inform and transform community news, conversations and information distribution and visualization. One thought is to deploy a similar model to seed and sustain contests for public good applications, such as employment, educational, community development, environment and health care applications, through philanthropic investments, and perhaps public-private partnerships. Additional philanthropic investments in organizations like Code for America that regularly recruit and place web development professionals with city governments can facilitate their growth and bring more talent to local governments desiring to become more responsive to community information needs.
National and community foundations are natural philanthropic partners. Private corporations can also be a source of additional revenue for these types of projects, especially if they have a vested interest in the city, state or region. One can imagine a public-private partnership that develops an application to address environmental, telecommunications, retail, and other concerns that affect where these industries are based, and their employees live. Finally, local citizens—especially those that are using nominal resources to solve community problems, can be a part of the solution. From the block clubs that report public safety issues to the resident leader that regularly calls public works to report potholes, public-private-citizen partnerships can generate ideas for meaningful public purpose applications that can improve the quality of life within communities. Directing some investments to local residents rather than web developers and engineers can produce solutions that have a greater chance of having an impact because they are generated from within.
Strategy 3: Establish flexible procurement procedures that allow for more off-the-shelf purchasing, easier contracting, and other application solutions for both computers and mobile devices to disseminate government information.
There is an urgent need to update procurement laws and procedures around local technology spending. In the Washington, D.C. Apps for Democracy program, the funded apps were developed outside of the normal procurement process, and the contest was aimed at developers creating applications that mashup data and software. The developers were not working for the government; rather they were using the data that government made available to the public. Easing the burden of endless paperwork and bureaucratic approvals can strengthen innovation for local governments interested in improving their transparency and availability of community information. Moreover, local governments must be able to share data over both wired and wireless platforms. With the proliferation of mobile devices, especially cell and smartphones, governments can gain easy and immediate access to consumers, especially those that do not own a computer, and widen their distribution of significant data.
And current constraints on devices should not limit the explosion of applications in the e-government space. Opportunities exist for the re-engineering of mobile devices with larger screens for the visually impaired or embedded two-way radios for connection to emergency response vehicles to accommodate the evolution of government applications.
Increased allocation of spectrum, especially in unserved and underserved broadband communities, can also facilitate improved linkages to government information and ensure more ubiquitous access for citizens. The ability to leverage text messaging services, along with scheduled email reminders about important matters such as parking tickets, meter readings and health updates, can yield positive results for local governments desiring to increase transparency.
Consideration to redistribute the line items within local technology budgets should be a priority for state and city governments. Governments might also explore industry partnerships, philanthropy or government grants to help fund and implement new mobile, e-government applications, or perhaps integrate a nominal cost into local transactions (e.g., property tax, drivers license renewal) to support mobile feeds and applications.
Strategy 4: Improve broadband access at community anchor institutions to ensure that citizens can tap into e-government resources.
There is great need to let the public know what is available from the government, and address issues of digital literacy so that more people will use and benefit from these services. ICT and “broadband-centric” open government solutions create opportunities to reduce the costs of providing information and services to the public. The obvious return on investment is when citizens actively use open government tools to conduct their lives and engage in robust conversations with their elected and appointed officials. While maximizing public demand for these tools reduces the average cost per online transaction, access to these services has to be increased. While residential broadband is an ideal condition, government leaders must actively market and promote their content to citizens at public access locations, especially in libraries, schools, community-based organizations, community colleges and other community anchor institutions.
These community anchor institutions can solve one of the major barriers to e-government adoption—access to the Internet. This is one of the stated goals of the National Broadband Plan where access to high-speed broadband is believed to “increase civic engagement by making government more open and transparent, creating a robust public media ecosystem, and modernizing the democratic process” (OBI, 2010). Currently, seniors, the poor, less educated, low-income and digitally illiterate are heavily dependent upon these public access institutions to access the web. Finding ways to strengthen the institutional base and promote open government as the norm in these locations will be critical to building consumer demand for local governments. And positioning government websites as home pages at these locations can also promote available resources and information. Where possible, patrons should also be connected to digital literacy training programs at these locations to help them use these assets more effectively.
One way to drive this level of e-government adoption is through the existing Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) managed by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). A portion of BTOP’s $7 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding is committed to community anchor institutions. Local governments should ensure that funded projects that meet these criteria integrate e-government resources into their projects and promote transparency about the effectiveness of their projects. The same strategy should also be under taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture where the Rural Utility Service (RUS) is charged with distributing grants and loans to under-served rural communities.
Current efforts to reform the Universal Service Fund (USF) to subsidize or discount broadband services will address affordability issues for anchor institutions and have a positive impact on the use of government services. In his paper on universal broadband for the Knight Commission, Blair Levin (2010) suggests the following steps to accelerate access to anchor institutions:
- Remove barriers to government funding of broadband networks.
- Facilitate demand aggregation for public sector broadband facilities, including health care facilities.
- Facilitate partnerships to enable more effective purchasing and design of complex connectivity needs.
In his paper, Levin suggests that USF reforms that touch these issues will not only drive demand, but also lay the groundwork for further upgrades in the mass market.
As mentioned, programs such as the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), Rural Utility Service (RUS) and Universal Service Fund (USF) are relatively easy opportunities to spur broadband adoption and use among disconnected populations. Bridging these funding mechanisms with the needs of local governments can be a crucial step in driving the demand and use of e-government services.
Strategy 5: Create government content that is relevant and accessible to all populations regardless of ability, language and literacy level.
Government content can become the killer application for constituents, especially if it enables two-way communication between citizens and their elected and appointed officials or promotes resources that enhance quality of life—educational, employment, health care—for citizens via the web or mobile devices. The key here is to remove the distance between governments and citizens through immediate online feedback, webcasting, podcasting, and other new media tools.
Government content must also be accessible and available on platforms that engage the visually and physically impaired. People with disabilities and seniors have a great need to be connected to government resources. Standards should be in place to ensure that online public information—whether data sets or services— are available with text sizing, audio and multimedia options, as well as interactive tutorials. These efforts must be promoted through targeted campaigns and perhaps segmented marketing activities, such as fairs and targeted workshops for these populations.
Content must also be multilingual and disseminated at an appropriate literacy level. One of the key findings from West’s 2008 study was that “64 percent of government websites are written at the 12th grade reading level or higher, which is much higher than that of the average American” (West, 2008). Local governments can follow the lead of One Economy Corporation, a global nonprofit that has directed programs to accelerate broadband access for the poor.
One Economy’s Beehive web site is an example of an intermediary site that has aggregated government resources into a multilingual web portal that is written at a sixth grade reading level. With over 15 million visitors since its inception in 2001, the Beehive web portal has launched in cities across the country and essentially aggregated information about education, health care, transportation, housing, employment, and family supports. One Economy markets the Beehive via its Make It Easy campaign that lets consumers feel more comfortable interfacing, finding and connecting to online resources.
Marketing efforts must also go beyond just announcing what types of services are available. Government-backed marketing efforts should include building campaigns that include community anchor institutions to educate the public about how to use specific services and make requests of government for public data.
Strategy 6: Promote public-private sector partnerships that enhance skill-building, technical expertise opportunities and forward thinking processes.
In this last strategy, government organizations should develop educational opportunities to train their leaders about approaches to manage IT-enabled services in this environment where data does matter. The move to the web brings difficulty to many government leaders in understanding how traditional brick-and-mortar services translate to the online environment. Developing partnerships among leading professional organizations for government leaders, schools of public administration and information, as well as private sector and advocacy organizations can facilitate the creation of a national curriculum on IT strategy for government. The curriculum could include content about a new customer service strategy in an online environment that understands the user experience and the fundamentals of transparency in government. The partners in the collaboration could co-develop the curriculum and deliver the content through various offline and online learning platforms. An institutional fund could be established through a foundation or university to vet and support research proposals and evaluate activities.
Unlike the technical working group, this partnership can develop research-based guidelines for designing open government services. As part of an interdisciplinary collaborative effort, a collection of resources from the technology and social science fields can be gathered to promote best practices for designing online services for the public. Information might include the aggregation and interpretation of community data sets, methods for engaging the diverse universe of consumers—from citizens to journalists, and market data highlighting strategies for involving underserved populations. As an example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and General Services Administration sponsored the publication of “Research-Based Web Design & Usability” (http://usability.gov/guidelines/ guidelines_book.pdf). This handbook offers specific guidelines that “help move us in [this] direction by providing practical, yet authoritative, guidance on a broad range of web design and communication issues. Having access to the best available research helps to ensure we make the right decisions the first time around and reduces the possibility of errors and costly mistakes” (HHS, 2009). A similar publication can be developed that specifically targets the needs of local governments and helps them understand the user experience.
Finally, government organizations can partner with the private sector to learn how to create and disseminate consumer-oriented applications. Partnerships with companies that focus on applications, telecommunications infrastructure and devices can be helpful to technology leaders who are often trying to keep archaic systems and process current instead of thinking about the power of next generation technology to usher their city or state into the digital age. Partnerships that grow intellectual expertise, process improvements and create robust applications can be promising opportunities for government leaders.
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