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A Whole of Government Information Sharing Space July 26th, 2010
No Comments I’m impressed by the Obama administration’s efforts to improve government information sharing as discussed in the Politico article Bringing Government Up to Data. However, I would like to see more focus placed on developing a platform-as-service model for the government rather than on data management or application development. Individual government agencies and offices have resources tied up in an IT infrastructure and information classification systems that are based on policies and legacy applications that are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
No single administration is going to be able to digest and re-write all the information sharing rules. But a single administration can make a dent in the long-term problem by providing a better level of IT services to their constituents, which include all government agencies, particularly those interested in information sharing at the unclassified and controlled unclassified levels. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Intelink unclassified network is a good example of an information sharing space that is Web accessible and includes a secure Web-based email, which is a must-have for international workers.
Building this level of service for the whole of government would take time, resources, and research. To increase user adoption, usability and policy concerns would need to be addressed. It’s a lot of work to be done. But trying to address network, application development, and information quality from the highest level of government I fear is going to leave little impact on the main problem: the network is as stove piped as are bureaucratic procedures of individual departments and agencies. We need to find a way to support horizontal information sharing within our government so we can solve problems without escalating everything to the highest levels and waiting for the decision to trickle down.
Application development and information quality are important issues that need to be addressed. But if the government provided a stable platform-as-service equally to all government agencies at the unclassified or controlled unclassified level, agencies could free up resources to tackle the information quality issue by hiring the necessary subject matter experts to make those data quality decisions.
Having an information sharing network for the whole of government would also impact the way government relates to contractors. Contractors should have clear and consistent technical requirements and procedures for accessing government networks, hosting Web applications, and delivering code and other raw files. As it stands, many contractors are left befuddled by the process or crunched by timelines and end up hosting applications on the public Web that would better be hosted on an intranet environment. When contractors are left to handle Web hosting, they often find themselves forced to pull the plug on a given Web site or application because the funds have run out on a given project and no one has quite figured out how to handle a Web site as a deliverable for archiving.
The big picture is that we, our government, needs a safe space and method for sharing data internally. And the horror stories about what would happen if people could share information transparently with each other haven’t really come to fruition. The Internet is a great model for what people can organize when they are free to organize themselves. Rather than worry about the exact process, our government should give itself the platform it needs to pull together and work together on issues we all care about and concerns we share. We are capable of sorting out the details. What we need is an accessible but secure information sharing space that will allow the whole of government to seed solutions from one administration to the next.
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