This ICF white paper examines the challenges of complying with the U.S. Open Government directive and applies lessons learned from the previous administration's Electronic Government initiatives to recommend an approach to successfully implementing Open Government. The Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government calls for a new era of open government—defined as a government that is transparent, participatory, and collaborative.
Federal agencies have been tasked with registering high-value data sets, assigning a high-level official for data integrity, launching a web page on open government, providing a web page or other mechanism for public feedback, and providing an open government plan. Results are posted prominently on a dashboard. This new directive received much acclaim, and early success stories have demonstrated that the benefits of Open Government are self-evident. However, the directive leaves the details of how to accomplish those goals up to each agency.