White House Asks For Transparency HelpWhite House Asks For Transparency Help

Last week, the Obama administration announced the Open Government Directive, a tangible step toward the transparency the President has touted. Now, White House officials are asking citizens to keep the government accountable.On Wednesday, deputy federal CTO for open government Beth Noveck asked the public for its help in creating metrics that can best hold the government's "feet to the fire," as she wrote in a blog post.

One of the initiatives the government announced last week was the creation of an "Open Government Dashboard." The details are scarce right now, but citizens and government officials will be able to use the site as a way to quantitatively and qualitatively measure the transparency performance of federal agencies.

That's where the public fits in. The blog asks for recommendations on what metrics the government might use, including such quantitative metrics like whether an agency has designated an official to lead its open government efforts and qualitative metrics like how well the agency is collaborating with the public and what impediments are holding back more robust transparency efforts.

The blog was posted this morning, and so far, there have been exactly zero comments, as opposed to the 156 posted in response to a proposal last week to make public-funded research freely available online.

It's not clear what's holding commenters back, but there are plenty of recommendations to be had. Here's one: the public should know if and how many times an agency voluntarily posts data online only later to rescind that information, and the reason for each move, such as the National Nuclear Security Administration's recent apparent move to stop releasing contractor data, something it has done for years.