The Department’s 2014 Open Government Plan, a biannual report providing updates on existing programmatic work as well as highlights of flagship initiatives, indicates the Department’s commitment to the principles of open government: transparency, participation, and collaboration.
The flagship initiatives, in particular, give reinforced evidence of this commitment. These initiatives include:
- A fully operational beta version of the Education Data Inventory, a repository of data that the Department collects.
- Early public participation and input in policy- and rule-making, with the Department conducting outreach on a number of important initiatives through in-person and online contact.
- A new version of the Federal Registry for Educational Excellence (FREE), a registry making it easier to find digital teaching and learning resources, and now powered by the Learning Registry, an open database for sharing digital learning resources
- The Integrated Student Experience (ISE) initiative, giving an enhanced customer experience, resulting in increased financial aid awareness and a simplified application and servicing experience, provided by: Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA); Studnetaid.gov and Financial Aid Toolkit; MyStudentData; Customer Listening Initiative; and FAFSASimplification/IRS Data Retrieval Tools.
- Public Challenges and Contests that engage students and educators and encourage their creative participation, including: the College Net Price Calculator Student Video Challenge; Why Open Education Matters Student Video Challenge; StopBullying.gov Student Video Challenge; Together for Tomorrow School Improvement Challenge; and White House Student Film Festival. See more challenges at Challenge.gov/ED.
- The Connected Online Communities of Practice project to improve teacher and leader effectiveness, enhance student learning, and increase productivity.
- ED Data Express, which focuses mainly on State-reported data on key K–12 programs and includes data from EDFacts, Consolidated State Performance Reports (CSPR), State Accountability Workbooks, and NCES.
- The ED Disclosure Review Board (ED-DRB), which is responsible for the review and approval of the disclosure avoidance protections used to protect privacy in the Department’s public data releases.
In addition to several ongoing activities to address the requirements of the Whistleblower Protection Act, planned activities include completing the posting of Whistleblower Protection Act information in all Department facilities, annual communication to all employees to refresh their awareness of Whistleblower Protection rights and protections, development of an online, on-demand training module that will be available to all employees, and enhanced use of Departmental internal communication venues.