Behind the Curtain at TCG

LAMHDI News

LAMHDI has a new release, and has included information from the Rat Genome Database in its searchable animal models, and has added functionality that allows users to search PrimateLit for information on non-human primate models. LAMHDI has a booth at the Zebrafish Development conference in Madison, WI this week.

Also, we added Micah Adams to the LAMHDI tech team.

Knowledge management in the cloud exists in government right now

Quoting speakers at the recent Knowledge Management Conference, an article at FCW.com says that...

"The combination of knowledge management and a cloud computing environment is the likely catalyst for open government"

and...

"the questions are: Who owns information in the cloud and what is the business model for leveraging intellectual property in the cloud, Neilson said.

Regarding standards, the issue is: Who sets the standards? Is it the vendors, government or international standard bodies? If it is just the larger firms -- domestically or internationally – will that hamper innovations from smaller firms?

On governance, the question is: Who makes the rules?"

While the discussion tends toward the question of international interoperability of cloud-based knowledge management (KM) platforms, the questions it poses are familiar to anyone who has stood up a KM system in government. Who owns the knowledge? What standards are we using? Should we inherit best practices from vendors or forge our own? Who governs the system?

Fortunately, there are well-established answers to these questions, implemented in existing cloud-based KM systems in government. The largest such system is the MAX Federal Community, which is now used by over 30,000 government workers across the Federal government. [Disclosure: TCG supports the MAX Federal Community.]

The answers to the questions posed at the KM Conference are:

• Knowledge is owned by their creators and participants. OMB, which manages the MAX Federal Community on behalf of the Budget Formulation and Execution Line of Business (BFELoB) PMO, owns only the knowledge that OMB staff has created for OMB. The propriety of agency knowledge is upheld.
  
• The standards are open. While there are some proprietary pieces to the technology stack, the standards by which knowledge is stored and managed are open and cross-platform.
  
• The system is governed by a cross-agency PMO, via the BFELoB.

This approach ensures that there are low barriers to entry and access. Knowledge can flow freely and securely around the system, within and between agencies and inter-agency groups.

So it's clear that at least one strong, established model for the governance of cloud-based KM systems exists.

TCG Supports Intergovernmental Solutions Award Finalist

TCG is pleased to announced that one of the government programs that we support, the Budget Formulation and Execution Line of Business’s (BFELoB)  MAX Federal Community, is a finalist for the American Council for Technology (ACT) 2010 Intergovernmental Solutions Awards. The awards will be presented at the ACT's 30th Annual Management of Change Conference on Monday, May 24th 2010. The awards “recognize IT projects that demonstrate collaboration between two or more government agencies, and innovative use of technology to improve citizen service delivery.” For more details, see the press release on the TCG website. Congratulations to the MAX Federal Community!

Learn about the MAX Federal Community

The MAX Federal Community now has almost 27,000 users. This is an incredible achievement, enabling staff across the Federal government to collaborate using some really great technology. FCW is hosting an "eSeminar" all about it, with the Community's master gardener, Emily Fort, talking about...

• How agencies can enable information-sharing and debate in a secure environment;
• The best ways to ensure information-quality and accountability in an open forum;
• How interagency working-groups can use collaborative technologies to not only share, but create meaningful content;
• Knowledge-management implications for federal agencies; and
• About the next-generation collaborative environment.

Go here to learn more and sign up

.

OMB wants your ideas on how to improve federal programs!

Via the ever-vigilant Cornelia Chebinou of the NGP and NASACT:

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has established Partner4Solutions.gov to gather solutions and best practices to improve service delivery, payment accuracy, administrative efficiency, and reduce access barriers in federally funded assistance programs. OMB has asked that we distribute t the link to this website.

States and local governments are already addressing these issues head-on and have identified many innovative approaches. Partner4Solutions.gov is an opportunity for taxpayers, program participants, and Federal, State, and Local program administrators to provide their input and begin a dialogue to better understand some of the on-the-ground best practices in this area.

This website is also a central element in meeting the transparency and collaboration principles of Executive Order 13520 – “Reducing Improper Payments and Eliminating Waste in Federal Programs.”

Please join this effort as a partner by contributing your ideas and solutions at Partner4Solutions.gov.

Inside FederalReporting.gov and the Recover Board

GovExec has a very interesting article covering the background, players, and trials in establishing FederalReporting.gov. It includes details on the reuse of EPA's Central Data Exchange (CDX) system to meet the requirements of the Recovery Act, and how the contractors (CGI Federal and Smartronix) collaborate to ensure all the systems work nicely together. Very much worth a read!

Transparency creates new IT challenges

As the government pushes for more transparency in operations and data delivery, IT departments must be prepared to take on significant challenges, says Dave McClure, GSA's associate administrator for the Office of Citizen Services and Communications. Those challenges are summarized as:

1. Disclosure management
2. Data sharing
   
3. Data quality
   
4. Multichannel service delivery
   
5. Data analysis
   
6. Disruption
   
7. Measuring impact

The bottom line for agencies is that more care needs to be taken to ensure data is appropriate, gathered from a broad array of sources and disseminated equally broadly, as free as possible of errors and problems, with a layer of analysis and integrity heretofore unimagined, and created with the notion of improved performance in mind.

Agencies are undoubtedly experiencing new pressures for flexibility and agility in delivery of data to the nation -- an expectant country now expects full and open disclosure of accurate information, as quickly as they demand it -- and IT plays a key role in supporting the government's performance in this regard.

Recovery.gov data in augmented reality on your iPhone/Android phone

Layar is an augmented reality application for iPhone and Android phones, and the Sunlight Labs have now created a layer for the app through which you can browse data from Recovery.gov! "Augmented reality" is a new class of applications that essentially layer data on top of a real-world image, in real-time. So if you're walking down the street, you can hold up your iPhone camera in front of you and the Layar application will show you all sorts of data on top of that "reality", as the images below show.

I use this to find interesting restaurants (using the Yelp.com app), Wikipedia entries for the places I'm in, and other nifty stuff like that. It's a fantastic way of adding to your knowledge about wherever you happen to be.

To get started, you should install the Layar app on your iPhone or Android phone, and then search in the app for the "Recovery.gov" data layer. Once you fire it up, you can see what organizations near your locale have received Recovery Act funding, how much, and get access to the complete record from Recovery.gov, right on your phone.

Data mashups like this are why it's so important for government to open itself up in the ways that Recovery.gov, Data.gov, and other initiatives are attempting to enable. The ways in which we citizens can use this data are many and unpredictable.

[Found via the often-awesome BoingBoing, from where I copied the above image, lest you see an augmented reality of my office instead!]

"Facebook" for scientists to be developed

The NIH has funded a new initiative to create a "Facebook for scientists." The $12.2 million/2 year grant was awarded to a consortium of seven universities, led by the University of Florida, to develop a web resource that will pull together information about faculty and staff, published articles, and information provided by researchers. The initiative will use VIVO, a "networking template" from Cornell.

The schools involved are Cornell University, Indiana University, University of Florida, Weill Cornell Medical College, Washington University in St. Louis, the Scripps Research, Institute and the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. Their roles are detailed in Cornell's press release on the news:

Cornell will spearhead the development of the multi-institutional functionality of the VIVO technology; the University of Florida will focus on developing technology for keeping each site’s data current; and Indiana University Bloomington will develop social networking tools to enable researchers to find others with similar interests. Four other institutions — Scripps Research Institute, Juniper, Fla.; Ponce School of Medicine, Ponce, P.R.; Washington University of St. Louis; and the Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City — will serve as implementation sites.

The "VIVOweb" initiative, as this will be known, has enormous potential. The communities of researchers are generally eager to participate in social networks such as VIVOweb is scoped to become, as has been demonstrated by the active community surrounding NITRC and other projects in which TCG has a role.

[Disclosure: TCG participated on a competing application for this grant.]

Presentation of NITRC's Excellence.gov Award

We took a little video of (some of) the NITRC team accepting their Excellence.gov Award yesterday. Included in the video are James Luo, Nina Preuss, David Kennedy, Christian Haselgrove, and Dan Turner. Shoddy camerawork is by me (for which I apologize!).