Tools for Transparency

SECRECY

Lack of Accountability Corruption Waste Cynicism

TRANSPARENCY

Participation Oversight Feedback Trust

Only partially available online

Formatted as web page or PDF

Hard to search Can’t subscribe Can’t visualize Can’t re-use

Publishing Structured Feeds

• Ability to subscribe to interesting data

• Data streams can be ‘mashed’ in new ways.

Data Visualization

• Makes it easy to find new patterns.

Collaborative Organization

• Tagging, Voting

Crowdsourcing

• Combines skills and input of large numbers of people

Governments publish data

streams

Citizens monitor data

streams

Issues are detected

Issues are resolved

3rd

Party Tools

• Governments publish data streams

• 3rd parties create tools for analysis and oversight

• Citizens collaboratively monitor their government

• Citizens detect issues, give feedback

• Issues are resolved

Government has little incentive ▪ Usually has disincentive

Don’t want a single monolithic solution▪ Want to allow evolution of best-

of-breed tools

Tools created by citizens, for citizens▪ Ensure participation

Why can’t the government do everything?

Focus: US Congress California

Legislature

Gives grants to online transparency tools

$3.5 M Seed

A recent US Congress bill

Groups for bill

Groups against bill

Donations

Votes

Publishing Structured Feeds

• MAPLight is a mashup of data streams from different sources.

Data Visualization

• MAPLight makes relationship between money and votes

visible.

Collaborative Organization

• Advocacy group tagsdonating companies as belonging to interest groups.

Crowdsourcing

• Thousands of journalists, advocates, and citizens can browse data and flag issues.

People submit project ideas

Core team defines tools

Web development groups bid for implementation

Supporters donate to fund development

Engine for 3rd Party Tool Development

Barcamps

Invitation-only events

Contests

Photo by Hyku, Flickr.com, Creative Commons SSA

Travel and Hospitality Expense Database

• Make it easy to sort and visualize expenses

• Make it easy to screen new expenses

Access to Information Request Front-End

• Make it easy to file an access to information request

• Collect statistics on requests and response times

• Highlight the areas that receive the most requests

Tim

e Track

Programs

Expose Data

Analyze Process

Start small, easy

Build community

Gain acceptance

Make open normal

Government IT

Underfunded

Not a priority

Not a competitive environment

“Never mind XML, never mind RSS. The data lives on paper and in Excel files. ... And there’s no reason to ever change that.”

Bug Fixers

Small Features

Larger Features

Core Team

Government-OpenSource Partnership

Mozilla Model:

Small paid team drives open source development

Movement organizing in the US:

Geek Corps

GOC Treasury Board

Expenditure Data Library

• Generalized system for making data public

• Implements IMF Code of Conduct for Fiscal Transparency

• Project nearing completion

• Developed as open source

• Invites collaboration with external partners

Ontario Small Bus. & Enterprise:

Grant Management Software

• Grant filing and tracking software

• Tracks selection criteria, results metrics

• Standard logic model

• Mature, in use code base, 5 years old

• Wants to open source this project

• Needs external partners

Paul Collier, 2007

Poverty Trap # 1: Conflict Trap

Government corruption begets revolutions driven by greed.

After a war...

A brief, crucial moment when people look for standards

Photo by Carl Montgomery, Flickr.com, Creative Commons A2G

Seed member of two start-ups

Nimcat Networks ▪ Sr. Developer, later: Architect &

Product Manager

▪ $43M exit in 2006

Tungle▪ Director of Product Management

▪ Initial team of 3, helped write business plan, design product, build team

▪ Raised $1.5M, launched in Feb. 2008

Degrees:

MBA, McGillB. E. Eng., U of SB. CS, U of S

Scott Hennig

• Alberta Director,Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Claire Joly

• General Director,Quebec League of Taxpayers

Michael McGuffin

• Prof. SW Engineering, ETS, Human Computer Interaction and Visualization

Advisors

• Technical Domain Experts, Academics

• Advocacy Groups

• Journalists

Volunteers

• Planners

• Organizers

• Evangelists

Money

• Donations

• Grants

Jennifer Bellvisiblegovernment.ca

OpenSecrets.org Standardized government financial database

OpenCongress Bill tracking, sharing, commenting

Congresspedia Wiki on congressional activity

MAPLight Highlights relation between donation and votes