The Path Forward

To be seen as more open, the federal government should actively market itself in print, online and everywhere else people consume information, according to a separate ForeSee Results study that analyzed people's perceptions of the transparency of agency websites. The more transparent the site, the more willing citizens were to trust the agency.

Websites allow all branches of government to make more data available to citizens, to do it faster and to make it easier to find. According to the firm's research, for the third quarter, close to 30 federal agencies that participated in the transparency evaluation earned a collective score of 75.8, up nearly a point over the previous quarter.

Click here for the index of agency transparency scores.

Online visitors assessed each agency, which included U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, based on factors similar to those measured in the ForeSee Results-Nextgov analysis: how thoroughly their sites divulged information about what the agency is doing, how quickly it was posted online and how easy it was to retrieve.

Craig Newmark, founder of online marketplace Craigslist, said that for agencies to boost public opinion, federal officials "need to work with [influential] people who'll bear witness for the work they do, and work more closely with serious accountability and transparency groups like Sunlight Foundation." Newmark is on the board of Sunlight, an organization that translates government data into online tables, graphics and other interactive features that illuminate hard-to-see patterns, such as how campaign spending has influenced the political system.

Anthony D. Williams, co-author of the 2007 bestseller Wikinomics and a senior fellow with the Lisbon Council, a Brussels-based think tank, suggested agencies meet with constituents to find fitting applications for newly disclosed information, rather than simply relying on them to seek it out.

The Education Department, for example, should reach out to teachers' groups or students to "make this kind of stuff part of the curriculum, frankly," he said. "I don't think there's much emphasis now on what used to be called civics."

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