Open source for transparency

The Federal IT Dashboard, launched this week, coordinates the Chief Information Officers of every government agency under  Vivek Kundra's new transparency standards. In his presser, he notes: "In making this data publicly available, we are providing unfettered access to investment performance to its true owners - the American people."  The Internet, above all, is a tool for connecting: people, ideas, organizations.  This site is a tool providing open access to information, that a new community may form to make use of this data.

Tim O'Reilly provides outstanding coverage of the project.  He notes,

This is part of being agile, and one of the first lessons in building an "architecture of participation": rather than having to get complete buy-in from everyone up front, you find a way to bootstrap the project, to get it to what Eric Raymond once called a plausible promise that encourages further participation. What you hope for is the kind of virtuous cascade that gave us successful open source projects like Linux and Apache, and participatory online services like Wikipedia, Craigslist, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, the web itself.

To be successful, the Federal IT Dashboard will need to do more than provide open access to data about government projects.  Participation, as O'Reilly notes, is fundamental. 

As undergraduates, we have the opportunity to engage this tool in a participatory manner.  Beyond acting on the details of federal information technology investments, the Federal IT Dashboard demonstrates a simple idea: We can create community tools to engage the world around us. 

Drupal, an open source content management system, powers the Federal IT Dashboard, as well as this site.  I learned to develop in Drupal in order to build tools enabling undergraduates to participate in the scientific process.  While, as I am learning, creating an "architecture for participation" is more than creating a website, with open source tools like Drupal empower anyone to lay the first foundational bricks.  

With Drupal we can construct immersive web experiences.  I see the Federal IT Dashboard and know that, with time, I could have developed such a site.  Without participation, Teme, like any other tool we may envision, is only an unrealized opportunity. 

I have many ideas for technologies to enable citizen participation in government.  With Drupal I dream of constructing a forum where legislators and laymen can meet to openly engage in directed dialog to draft law.  Implemented, this tool might enable each of us to actualize our dreams for our nation.  

But this tool does not exist.  Open content management systems are means addressing but one aspect of creating a participatory community.  We must create open human management systems as well: technologies enabling each of us to not only build tools but share them in meaningful ways with each other.