About ED OVERVIEW
Evaluate Our Progress—Open Government Initiative at ED

Open Gov Link

OMB's December 8, 2009 Open Government Directive establishes deadlines for action by each federal agency. Here's how ED is progressing to meet those deadlines:

High-Value Data

Score: Meets

Rationale:
Education published four high-value datasets in an open, machine-readable format on Data.gov on January 21.

  1. CCD: School District Financial Survey FY2007
    How much money did each public school district in the U.S. take in and spend in the 2006-07 school year? What were districts' expenditures for instruction, student support, and administration -- and for instructional materials, supplies, and facilities maintenance? What percent of revenue came from local, state, and federal sources?

  2. Public Use Data Files for PEQIS 16: Distance Education at Postsecondary Institutions, 2006-07
    What kinds of distance education courses are provided in the U.S.? What is known about the availability and use of these courses? How they are delivered to students? What policies govern them?

  3. TIMSS 2007 US public-use data file
    How do U.S. students (in 4th and 8th grades) perform in mathematics and science compared to students other countries? What factors may be related to achievement in these subject areas?

  4. Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Application Volume Reports
    How many students took the first step toward applying for college financial assistance by filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)? How many students in each state filled it out? What is the breakdown (number of students who filled it out) by postsecondary institution?

Data Integrity

Score: Meets

Rationale:
Danny Harris, Chief Information Officer (CIO), is the designated Senior Accountable Official responsible for the quality of Federal spending information at the Department of Education.

Open Government Webpage

Score: Meets

Rationale:
ED will launch its Open Government webpage at www.ed.gov/open on Feb 5.  This page will serve as the portal to ED activities related to the Open Government Directive. On this page, the public will be able to download the data sets we've published, find information about and links to ED transparency and public participation efforts during the first year of the Obama Administration, find information for contacting the team that will be drafting the ED Open Government Plan, and share their ideas for how ED can be more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.  Our annual FOIA report will be available too.

Public Consultation

Score: Meets

Rationale:
ED will launch its Open Government participation tool on Feb 6.  It will be linked to on the Open Government webpage and will invite citizens to share ideas and comments—and vote on those ideas—about information ED should prioritize for publication and the quality of information ED is publishing at www.openeducation.ideascale.com.  ED will invite all staff to share and comment on ideas in an existing internal online forum created in Spring 2009 called "OpenED."


 
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Last Modified: 02/08/2010