The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Open Government Plan demonstrates some progress to make its operations more open, participatory, and collaborative. The SBA plan lists a few datasets that are accessible and downloadable via data.gov but fails to propose specifics on making more data available. The plan lacks details on collaboration and participation including any management or administrative changes to improve participation and specifics on collaborating with other agencies and outside groups. And although SBA doesn’t describe how much the agency engaged the public or employees in developing the plan, its proposals to implement user feedback, engage the public, and use interactive tools are commendable.

Their flagship project is a website redesign which has ad hoc reporting tools and a search function which will allow users to navigate the web pages easily; it also includes a dashboard feature that provides direct access to datasets, reports and the most relevant information. Another notable feature of SBA’s plan is to set up metrics to monitor their web hits to various sections of the site, which the agency plans to use to help them build out their website and focus on what users are viewing the most.

If you any think part of the agency's plan is impressive, or you have concrete suggestions on how the agency could improve its plan, please share your ideas with us using the form at the bottom of the page.