Introduction
To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown
so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind.
It has been over two years since NASA released the first version of its Open Government Plan. The first Plan represented a bold step toward becoming an even more transparent, participatory and collaborative agency and included 147 goals across 22 organizations at NASA. Admittedly, the goals we set out to achieve were difficult – we are proud that we accomplished an enormous amount of what we set out to do!
As we move forward, the revised Plan is an opportunity to build on what we have learned during the implementation of the first two years of the Initiative. The framework of NASA’s new Plan remains the same, but the many activities associated with the Plan will change. As we close out our first three Flagship Initiatives, we will introduce a new Flagship Initiative that focuses our resources on creating an accessible, participatory and transparent web environment based on open and interoperable standards. This effort will provide a new Agency-wide capability to create, maintain, and manage the nasa.gov web environment and associated services which represent what Open Government at its best can and should be. In addition to the Flagship, we will expand our Open Data and Open Source efforts, and add a new category of activities called “Technology Accelerators.” These key efforts collectively represent NASA’s commitment to engaging citizens in the space exploration and aeronautics mission.
As openness becomes even more pervasive throughout the Agency’s culture, both at the organizational and individual levels, we recognize the unique challenge we have in collecting the widespread activities and success stories related to Open Government at NASA. Accordingly, we have updated our Plan with this in mind and have created a new directory of participatory, collaborative and transparent activities that represents how Open Government continues to evolve at NASA.
Overall, the NASA Open Government Plan provides a strong multi-dimensional framework of technology, policy, and culture, creating new and leveraging existing platforms for transparency, participation, and collaboration – all to better support the Agency’s mission to pioneer the future. The updated Plan represents our latest efforts in working together – with YOU – to enable us all to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown.