Open Machine-Readable Government
Since agencies have again failed to comply with section 10 of the GPRA Modernization Act (GPRAMA), I have published the most recent updates to their strategic plans in open, standard, machine-readable Strategy Markup Language (StratML) format at https://stratml.us/drybridge/index.htm#FedAgencies.
For additional background, see my articles in Government Computer News entitled "The open, efficient, machine-readable government" and "A plethora of YADs: Let's hope they point to a more intelligent future".
For technical background, see Wikipedia's article on machine-readable documents.
#gprama #machinereadability #stratml
"Machine-readable. Consistent with the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, information published through Performance.gov will be made available to the public in a machine-readable format. Documents posted on Evaluation.gov will likewise be available in a machine-readable format." OMB Circular A-11, page 5 of Section 210, PDF page 679, July 2024 Note difficulty of directly referencing that guidance because it fails to implement the good practice set forth in the OPEN Government Data Act https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/open-gov-data-act-machine-readable-records-owen-ambur/
Since the misguided direction provided by Trump adminstration on its way out the door is no longer available via the link in the article referenced in Shelley Metzenbaum's post, here's a link to a copy in the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210104160822/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/letter_revised.pdf Shelley's post is at https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/shelley-metzenbaum_restore-program-performance-data-to-the-president-activity-6754881491890688000-vZ7T/ and the article from Government Executive is at https://www.govexec.com/management/2021/01/restore-program-performance-data-presidents-budget/171350/ Let's hope the Biden adminstration follows through on its updated guidance and makes agency budget submissions available as performance plans in machine-readable format, like #StratML Part 2, Performance Plans and Reports (formerly ANSI/AIIM 22:2017).
"Budget submissions to OMB should be in the form of a performance plan to the greatest extent possible." OMB Circular A-11, August 2022, section 51.1, General Requirements, page 2 of section 51, PDF page 142. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/a11.pdf Note the difficulty in referencing, much less directly linking to the non-machine-readable rendition of OMB circulars. The next step is to ensure that budget submissions are made in open, standard, machine-readable format, thereby complying with section 10 of GPRAMA. Doing so will also link spending (inputs) to results (outputs & outcomes) as a byproduct of the process.
Progress:? In the June 28 release of Circular A-11, OMB announced its intent to "work with a small subset of Federal agencies on an exploratory initiative to produce machine-readable components or portions of the FY 2021 Annual Performance Plans and FY 2019 Annual Performance Reports." https://stratml.us/carmel/iso/A11-240wStyle.xml#_aada4d70-a90a-11e9-a082-d69e4d1a686a? #omb?#gprama?#performancereporting?#machinereadability