Photo: FDA

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday launched an innovative performance management system called FDA-TRACK to monitor more than 100 program offices.

The system is designed in line with the President Barack Obama’s commitment to transparency, public participation, and collaboration in the government.

FDA-TRACK measures data from key performance measures established on an annual basis. That data will be gathered monthly, analyzed and presented each quarter to FDA senior leadership. Importantly, the information will be open to the public through the FDA-TRACK website.

“FDA-TRACK will bring the operations of this historically opaque agency into the daylight and help us be even more responsive as we work to protect the public health,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg.

FDA-TRACK is designed to be informative, encourage accountability among FDA employees, and make their work more transparent and measurable. It also provides a way for the public to monitor agency activities.

Adapted from several successful state and local performance management models, FDA-TRACK hopes to set the standard for open government at the federal level. The system monitors performance indicators in four categories: common measures, key center director measures, program measures, and key projects.

Statistics measured could include, among others, the number of employees trained in the Incident Command System, an emergency response system; monitoring publishing of technical publications; and even developing new approaches for evaluating safety of new drugs.

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Photo: DoD

In a move signaling the pervasiveness of social media, the Department of Defense has recently allowed service members to use social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter at work.

While DoD monitors individuals’ use, it is also using them to ensure consistency in organizations’ online footprint.

The new policy requires organizations to register their Facebook pages as an “official external presence” with the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs on a list maintained on www.Defense.gov (linked under “social media”). A military organization page must use official logos, official website links and adhere to a list of directives and regulations.

Even though the new DoD social-media policy does not require organizations to use social media, it has an entire hub dedicated to them. The U.S. Army alone has hundreds of official Facebook pages, and thousands more comprise the collection of military pages, mostly on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Even the Army’s Installation Management Command, who oversees Army communities worldwide, makes it clear in its terms of reference that public affairs offices are responsible for telling the Army and IMCOM story “through all communication venues inclusive of press releases, Internet, newspapers and social media.”

Being registered enables users, whether soldiers, family members or the public media, to confirm a site is official and a reliable source of information. Sites on the DoD Social Media registry must operate under guidance from commanders, officers-in-charge, or service component and the information posted complies with DoD policy, existing regulations and official public affairs guidance.

Now that social-media sites are accessible both at home and work and their use is officially encouraged, users must consider how to manage their “brand” while safeguarding privacy.

“One way to protect against identity theft is to sign up and register your Facebook page (or other popular social-media account) before someone else does. Own your space,” said Steve Dalby, an Army Europe Information Technology training specialist who teaches a Social Networking Systems and Site Awareness course.

He adds that servicemen and woman should always obtain approval before starting a new official Facebook page, and keep in mind that the principle of “need to know” applies to military conversations just as much as it does to private conversations. Instead of posting comments on a friend’s Facebook page, maybe a private message is better idea.

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Photo: DoD

The Department of Defense’s first-ever director of media affairs and social media czar has left the Pentagon, Wired reports.

Price B. Floyd, who is also an adjunct professor at The George Washington University, was tapped last year by DoD Secretary Robert M. Gates to improve the way the department communicates and promote the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social-networking tools to spread the department’s message. A frequent user of Twitter with more than 3,000 followers, Floyd often sought peoples’ ideas on what the Pentagon was doing and whether its critics made valid points.

Regarding his departure, Floyd told Wired it is simply time to move on. His official last day was yesterday, but on Monday he began teaching a class on public diplomacy at GWU. He will also help out on special projects for the Center for a New American Security, a think tank where he worked prior to coming to the Pentagon.

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NASA is encouraging visitors to The Commons to add tags or keywords to the images to identify objects and people. In addition, viewers can communicate with other visitors by sharing comments. These contributions will help make the images easier to find online and add insight about NASA’s history.

Three sets of photos share a common theme of NASA’s early days. The “Launch and Takeoff” features images of iconic spacecraft and aircraft taking flight. “Building NASA” highlights groundbreaking events and the construction of some of NASA’s facilities. The “Center Namesakes” set features photos of the founders and figureheads of NASA’s 10 field centers.

“NASA’s long-standing partnership with Internet Archive and this new one with Yahoo!’s Flickr provides an opportunity for the public to participate in the process of discovery,” said Debbie Rivera, lead for the NASA Images project at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “In addition, the public can help the agency capture historical knowledge about missions and programs through this new resource and make it available for future generations.”

Library of Congress launched The Commons to increase access to publicly held photo collections and provide a way for the public to contribute information and knowledge.

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“HealthCare.gov is a valuable resource for small businesses, consumers and their families to search for coverage options and understand the new benefits under the Affordable Care Act,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. “By putting the power of information at your fingertips, HealthCare.gov is helping American families everywhere to take control over their health care and make the choices that are right for them.”

The Insurance Finder “widget” allows website or blog owners to embed a tool on their site allowing users to begin the process of searching for coverage options. The tool asks users two initial questions: “select a state” and “which best describes you.” After clicking on “next steps,” users are taken to a page on HealthCare.gov that continues with the insurance-finder process based on answers to their specific questions.

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Image: worldbank.org

Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Cass R. Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, last week announced the recipients of The Leading Practices Awards, recognizing agencies that achieved above and beyond the requirements of the Open Government Directive in promoting transparency in the best and most innovative way.

Awards were determined on the basis of evaluation of the plans against the definition of “Leading Practice” by the agencies themselves. Chopra and Cass defined “Leading Practices” as a way to inspire a “race to the top” among government agencies for increased openness and innovation.

There are four categories of awards corresponding to each of the major goals of the Open Government agenda: Leadership, Governance and Culture Change; Transparency; Participation and Collaboration; and Flagship Initiative

“These awards represent the very best of the best in Open Government Plans — exemplary of the high levels of creativity and innovation that can be found in the open government activities of federal agencies today,” Chopra and Cass wrote on the Open Gov Blog.

Photo: cnettv.cnet.com

Department of Transportation was awarded in the Leadership, Governance and Culture Change category. In the Transparency category, Department of Health and Human Services took home a prize. Department of the Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency and NASA were awarded in the Participation and Collaboration category. In the Flagship Initiative, six agencies were recognized: Department of the Interior, Department of Transportation, EPA, General Services Administration, NASA and Office of Personnel Management.

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Photo: siftwire.com

As part of its continuing efforts to make its findings and recommendations available to a wider audience, the Government Accountability Office has launched a mobile version of its website, making it easier for users to access GAO reports on their smartphones and other small-screen mobile devices.

“People are increasingly using mobile devices to access the internet and GAO’s mobile website will enable more users to quickly get to GAO’s most recent reports, testimonies, and legal decisions and learn about our efforts to promote accountability and help improve government performance,” said Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general of the United States and head of the GAO. “This initiative will help ensure our work is as accessible as possible, both for Congress and the public.”

GAO’s mobile website aims to meet the public’s evolving preferences for sharing and receiving information. The Pew Research Center reports 40 percent of adults are using the Internet, email, or instant messaging on a cellphone in 2010, up from 32 percent in 2009.

The mobile website’s content is organized under three main tabs. The first allows users to browse the latest GAO reports and testimonies; the second provides users with the agency’s legal decisions and opinions; and the third, highlights timely GAO work. Users of the website can also use the search feature to quickly find specific GAO products. The mobile version of GAO’s website is automatically opened by visiting the same URL as GAO’s regular website, www.gao.gov, via a mobile device.

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The new office will carry out government-to-government objectives with tribal governments and increased coordination with native organizations and work to promote the implementation of communication technologies in tribal lands.

“Tribal lands and Native communities suffer unacceptably low levels of communications services, especially broadband,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Increasing connectivity in Native America is one of the FCC’s top priorities. With this new office, the Commission will work closely with Native leaders to develop and implement policies that ensure their communities enjoy the benefits of 21st Century communications infrastructure.”

According to FCC, the Office of Native Affairs and Policy will coordinate with American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages, Native Hawaiian organizations, and other Native and tribal entities.

“This is a day I have long hoped and worked for,” said Commissioner Michael J. Copps. “Now is the time to redeem those promises, building a trust relationship and using the revolutionary state-of-the-art technologies available to us to make all Americans the beneficiaries of twenty-first-century opportunity and a more fullyshared democracy.

Geoffrey Blackwell will assume leadership of the office and will be part of FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

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The “Stop. Think. Connect.” campaign hopes to make more Americans aware of threats in cyberspace through various multimedia platforms.

“We really are interested in public-private partnerships,” said NIST Program Lead for the National Initiative For Cybersecurity Education Dr. Ernest McDuffie. “Engaging with academia and private industry, letting them know what the federal government is about, what we’re trying to do and how they can help us achieve these goals. It’s pretty clear that the issue of cybersecurity is so big, that it’s well beyond the scope of any federal agency, even the entire federal government.”

In March, Janet Napolitano announced the “National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign Challenge.” The initiative was created to improve cybersecurity awareness and education for Americans of all ages.

According to Federal News Radio, Bruce McConnell, cybersecurity counselor at the National Protection and Programs Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, commented on the campaign.

“We want to increase awareness, we want to increase the percentage of the people who understand what the risk is and what they can do about it,” he said. “We can get more people involved and begin to shift the perception (about cybersecurity) among the American people.”

DHS will target the most important target audiences during the initial phase of the campaign and then shift to a focus on businesses and senior citizens during the second phase.

The “Stop. Think. Connect.” campaign will begin Oct. 4, 2010.

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Photo: MIT

The Federal Communications Commission released a notice earlier this week requesting public comment on the creation of an anticipated FCC plan that looks to address cybersecurity.

The plan, the Cybersecurity Roadmap, seeks to identify vulnerabilities to core Internet protocols and develop solutions in response to cyber threats and attacks.

The Cybersecurity Roadmap was recommended as an initial step forward in the area of cybersecurity as part of the Commission’s National Broadband Plan. Specifically, the NBP recommended the FCC issue, in coordination with the Executive Branch, a plan to address cybersecurity.

FCC looks to finalize the Cybersecurity Roadmap by November 2010.

“Cybersecurity is a vital topic for the commission because end-user lack of trust in online experiences will quell demand for broadband services, and unchecked vulnerabilities in the communications infrastructure could threaten life, safety and privacy,” stated FCC.

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