Participation and Collaboration

The Department is using a number of technologies to encourage public participation and collaboration. We highlighted college.gov at the beginning of this plan and describe several others below. While this is the future direction of the Department, it is just the beginning. Online communities are already becoming commonplace, a trend we expect to continue and accelerate. Some of these communities will be long term, such as college.gov, and others may be special-purpose focus groups that come into being to solve a problem and dissolve at the end of their work. Online interactive tools can provide the rich participation and collaboration experiences needed to support educational communities of all kinds.