Work in Progress: Some Agencies Dip Their Toes in the Open Government Pool

As many of you may know, we are currently working on evaluating the Open Government Plans that were not required to be developed under the Open Government Directive (OGD). Under the OGD, 29 components of the government, including all agencies large enough to have a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and parts of the Executive Office of the President, are required to develop and post Open Government Plans.

For every other component of the federal government - from the tiniest commission to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) - the directive is considered "guidance" that the component can disregard without penalty. Overall, 18 components of the government that were not required to develop Open Government Plans did so. We are calling these "Extra Open Government Plans."

Our full evaluations will not be released until this summer. Already though, we see a distinction between plans that are fleshed out first drafts and plans that are more correctly described as a very rough outline that does not yet have enough substance to fairly evaluate it.

While there isn't enough substance to fairly evaluate these plans, below are a couple of notes on each plan's current form:

Central Intelligence Agency - webpage; has not been updated since posted and no apparent mechanism to gather feedback

Consumer Product Safety Commission - 4 pages, with pictures - email address listed for feedback

Election Assistance Commission - asking for ideas for its plan - submit comments at the bottom of the webpage

National Indian Gaming Commission - webpage, no dates listed for initial posting, or update and no apparent mechanism to gather feedback

Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission - 6 page discussion draft; "web page will be modified in the near future to include a feedback and comment section for public use"

Office of the Director of National Intelligence - 5 pages, open for agency and public comment, email open-gov@dni.gov

Selective Service System - "coming soon;" contact using open@sss.gov

U.S. Access Board - webpage; directs feedback to quality@access-board.gov

We look forward to seeing the plans these components of the government develop in the future.