Participation in Transparency Initiatives

6.1 Reconstitute USA.gov as the Front Door to the U.S. Government

For a government to truly be open, the public must be able to find information about government activities and services. Established by the e-Government Act of 2002 as the official web portal of the U.S. Government, USA.gov has a long history of connecting millions of citizens to the government information and services they need. Recently re-launched to be more responsive to users, USA.gov has become a more efficient and adaptive publishing platform for Federal, state, and local governments. Going forward, the GSA will implement additional user-centered enhancements, including delivering enhanced content, and will work with agencies to help the public identify and receive services they need based on their own goals rather than government structure.

6.2 Review and Report Accessibility Compliance of Federal Websites through Pulse.CIO.gov

By creating and implementing software code that can assist in evaluating the accessibility of websites across the government, the United States will increase the government’s ability to assess accessibility of Federal information for citizen consumers and Federal workers with disabilities. The GSA will expand the transparent reporting platform pulse.cio.gov to measure performance of all Federal web domains against web policy requirements and industry best practices, while connecting domain owners to information and resources to better ensure that their sites comply with the requirements of Section 508.

6.3 Develop Limited-English-Proficiency Policies and Programs

Recipients of Federal financial assistance through the GSA will have policies and practices in place to provide meaningful access to limited English-proficient individuals. The GSA will conduct outreach and training efforts with its employees and recipients of Federal assistance to inform these policies and programs.

6.4 Allow users to authenticate official third party accounts and mobile apps with the U.S. Digital Registry

Official government websites are easy to recognize because they end in domain names like .gov and .mil. Increasingly, however, citizens choose to access their services, ask questions and participate through third-party platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Twitter and Github. Citizens shouldn’t have to hunt for the critical information they need across bureaucratic silos and emerging platforms, or second guess if the person who is engaging with them on the other side of the connection is who they say they are. The GSA will expand use of the The U.S. Digital Registry, an API-generating platform which currently authenticates almost 10,000 third party accounts and mobile apps, including developing a public-facing browser of official accounts for anyone to use.

6.5 Expand and Enhance Public-Facing Resources on The Acquisition Gateway

The Acquisition Gateway, built by the GSA, is a procurement workspace that provides accurate, useful, and unbiased advice to both federal employees and the public. Through a careful vetting process and collaboration with agency partners, in the interest of transparency, we launched a public view of the Acquisition Gateway on February 5, 2016. This includes:

• Statement of work library with SOWs, SOOs, or performance based work statements that have been used in solicitations and identified by the category manager as valuable examples.
• Expert articles submitted for sharing best practices or case studies.
• Descriptions of contract vehicles.

By placing this information in a central repository, it provides immense value to the procurement community. Previously, only federal employees could visit the Gateway. Now the citizen, vendor community, and state and local government employees may use it in this capacity. The GSA will continue developing public-facing resources on The Acquisition Gateway based on public feedback and prioritization of business need.

6.6 Develop a public-facing dashboard for reporting activities and initiatives within inter-agency Digital Communities

The GSA’s Digital Communities unite federal teams with 9,000 memberships across 14 active mission areas—the largest and most active inter-agency network of transformative federal government managers—as critical mission hubs that provide a platform for sharing, developing and implementing strategies.

Their contributions include the introduction of citizen voice platforms like Yelp for public services and Artificial Intelligence for customer service, the support of more than 700 prizes and competitions, inter-Community platforms like the U.S. Digital Registry, development of the U.S. Public Participation Playbook and other resources for Cyber-Security and Accessibility for persons with Disabilities, and mobile products that put services in the hands of citizens.

The GSA will develop a dashboard on for reporting major activities within the 14 Digital Communities so the public can see inter-agency initiatives as they develop and request information or offer feedback into the process.