The Open Government Citizen
Engagement is a response to the Open Government Directive, which
was issued on December 8, 2009 by the Director of OMB. This
directive asked that executive departments and agencies take
specific actions to implement the principles of transparency,
participation and collaboration, as set forth in the Presidents
January 21, 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.
GSA is creating an Open Government Citizen Engagement tool, an
online collaboration tool powered by IdeaScale, as one example of
methods for agencies to use in extensively engaging the public. The
Open Government Citizen Engagement will allow the public to weigh
in on their support for agency and public ideas, comments,
suggestions, data sets, and the like, and allow agencies to engage
with the public via Ratings, Rankings and Flaggings. The goal is to
allow the public to rate and rank open-ended, general questions,
comments and suggestions. Tools that allow rating, ranking and
flagging (for example, many blogs, ideation, challenge grant
platforms, and other social media tools) can be used across
government. This information collection request for an emergency
clearance is being submitted in order to fulfill the public
engagement aspects of the Open Government initiative, and to allow
all agencies to use this and similar rating, ranking, voting and
flagging tools in this exercise and other exercises and meet the
goals of Open Government.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.