Jason Williams shares his experience as part of a working group on Utah's GRAMA law where his team recommended new Open Data Policy guidelines.
Continue readingRecommendations for Stronger Local Asset Disclosure
The release of asset disclosure information is spotty at best on the local level. We have a few recommendations for opening up this data.
Continue readingMaking US Government Data License-Free
What license should government apply to open data? No license at all, because it’s not their data — it’s ours
Continue readingThe Impact of Local Asset Disclosure
Opening up asset disclosures helps empower public oversight of potential conflicts of interest for local government officials. Reporters across the country are calling out the need for access to this information as open data.
Continue readingThe Landscape of Local Asset Disclosure
Many local government officials have to disclose information about potential conflicts of interest, but this information is difficult to find released as open data.
Continue readingMontgomery County’s Open Data Town Hall, the Town Hall of the Future
On Thursday November 21st, Montgomery County, Maryland hosted an Open Data Town Hall to solicit feedback from citizens about what data they would like to see prioritized for release online under Montgomery County’s open data law.
Continue readingDC Approves Campaign Finance Reforms
In a legislative meeting today, DC council members unanimously approved a bill that moves campaign finance in the District toward greater transparency. The legislation requires electronic filing of campaign finance information and the publication of that information online within 24 hours -- language that Sunlight's local team recommended in the bill's drafting process.
Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, who moved the bill through Council, thanked Sunlight for our role in this win for transparency:
Thanks also to the @SunFoundation for their input on transparency reforms that are cornerstone of this DC campaign finance reform
— Kenyan R. McDuffie (@CM_McDuffie) December 3, 2013Open Data Executive Order Compliance: The Bad and The Good.
The first major deadline for agency compliance with President Obama's open data Executive Order arrived this past Saturday. Agencies were required to, among other things, provide the Office of Management and Budget with an "Enterprise Data Inventory" and release a list of all their public data via a /data page on their websites.
We had hopes that some agencies might choose to publicly release their entire Enterprise Data Inventories, providing a full picture of their data holdings. Unfortunately, so far, that does not seem to have happened. Until the full inventories are available, the public will still be stuck in the dark, not knowing what we don’t know about government data holdings.
Nonetheless, most cabinet level agencies, as well as a number of independent agencies that were not required to comply, have taken steps to publicly fulfill the other aspects of the Executive Order. Levels of compliance have been varied, but we will try to highlight some of the worst and best examples below.
Continue readingLooking Towards Next Week’s Open Data Executive Order Deadline
November 30th marks the first major deadline for agency compliance with President Obama’s Open Data Executive Order and accompanying Memorandum M-13-13. In addition to representing an important step in the march towards open government and proper data management, this is an opportunity to evaluate agencies, identify best practices, and advocate for change. The Executive Order will continue to be implemented over the coming months and years, but agencies should, and will, be judged on how much effort they put into this first deadline. The level of agency compliance now will be a clear representation of how seriously they take the Executive Order.
Guidance issued alongside the Executive Order provides a strong roadmap for agency participation, but leaves some important points up for interpretation. Notably, agencies are given too much leeway to keep even the existence of their data secret.
Continue readingThe Global Open Data Initiative Needs Your Input
Open Data has enormous unfulfilled promise to change how governments work and to empower citizenship. As more governments and issue... View Article
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