Content Strategy

Fostering Medical Innovation: A Plan for Digital Health Devices

It is incumbent upon FDA to ensure that we have the right policies in place to promote and encourage safe and effective innovation that can benefit consumers, and adopt regulatory approaches to enable the efficient development of these technologies. By taking an efficient, risk-based approach to our regulation, FDA can promote health through the creation

Scott Gottlieb, M.D.

Jun 16, 2017

Hybrid Cloud: A Key to Phasing in New Technologies

Like any newer technology, cloud computing has faced adoption challenges. IT managers understand the huge potential efficiency improvements and savings that cloud computing can bring to their agencies, but also have questions about security, compatibility, and funding. With these concerns and without a clear path to cloud computing, many agencies continue to maintain on-premises solutions.

Mary Davie

Jun 08, 2017

The Data Briefing: Design-Driven Enterprise Architecture Creating the New Federal Government Agency

It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on enterprise architecture (EA). My last in-depth work with EA was around 2011 when I was on detail to the Office of Personnel Management’s Open Government Team. The EA model I worked with was the top-down organizational design of information technology assets, data assets, and business processes.

Bill Brantley

Jun 07, 2017

Opening Public Services to Artificial Intelligence Assistants

“Hey, Computer, how do I access my public services?” Citizens will soon be able to ask their Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPA) this question through an Emerging Citizen Technology open-sourced pilot program. The purpose of the initiative is to guide dozens of federal programs make public service information available through automated, self-service platforms for the home

Justin Herman

Jun 06, 2017

The New FEC.gov

Last week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) unveiled their new website at FEC.gov. This new site is the result of a years-long collaboration with GSA’s 18F and features completely revamped tools for exploring campaign finance data. It provides user-centered content for understanding the reporting and compliance requirements for people participating in federal elections, redesigned tools

Noah Manger

Jennifer Thibault

Jun 06, 2017

Federalist Is out of Beta and Open for Business

If you’re a program manager or a federal web developer you’ve probably been given a seemingly simple task: Create a basic website as part of a new initiative at your agency. The hardest part is often not crafting the content or designing the prototype, but getting the security and privacy compliance in order to launch

Will Slack

Jonathan Hooper

Jun 05, 2017

From Launch to Landing: How NASA Took Control of Its HTTPS Mission

18F Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Karim Said of NASA. Karim was instrumental in NASA’s successful HTTPS and HSTS migration, and we’re happy to help Karim share the lessons NASA learned from that process. In 2015, the White House Office of Management and Budget released M-15-13, a “Policy to Require Secure Connections

Karim Said

May 26, 2017

Want to Expand Your Innovation Base? Dive In, Run a Challenge, and Listen to Your Customers

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) is a small agency in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) whose mission is to increase the interoperability and use of electronic health records and health IT. We don’t have the funding and personnel of larger agencies, and, for the most part, this is fine. The

Adam Wong

May 24, 2017

How Facebook Live Increased Reach and Engagement of Scientific Lectures at NIH

Helping patients manage chronic pain has become an increasing challenge for health care providers, particularly in the face of an ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States. In response, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made funding research on integrative health approaches to pain

Yasmine Kloth

May 22, 2017

The Next Step Towards a Bug Bounty Program for the Technology Transformation Service

We took a big step toward creating a bug bounty program for our agency by issuing an award to HackerOne for a Software-as-a-Service bug-reporting platform.

Eric Mill

Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi

Waldo Jaquith

May 18, 2017

Becoming an Agile Content Team

In March, the team of writers and editors at USAGov adopted some agile principles in an attempt to streamline our content development process. We hoped operating in a more agile manner would help us address some of the challenges we were facing as a team:

Jessica Milcetich

May 16, 2017

My Q & A with the IT Industry – What’s Working and What Could be Improved in Federal Acquisition

I recently met with more than 50 representatives from the top IT services companies and talked about the good and the bad in federal acquisition. Some of the discussion was surprising … some not so much. The key takeaways include some changes that are fairly simple for government to implement, yet have big impacts. 1.

Mary Davie

May 11, 2017

Cybersecurity: Protecting Manufacturing Technology and Innovation

Recently a segment on my favorite morning news program stopped me in my tracks. The young and attractive hosts (why are they always so young and attractive?) were demonstrating new appliances including a smart refrigerator. The fridge was equipped with all kinds of high-tech features including touch screen displays, a camera inside that allows you

Pat Toth

May 04, 2017

DHS Study on Mobile Device Security

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has submitted a report to Congress that details current and emerging threats to the Federal government’s use of mobile devices and recommends security improvements to the mobile device ecosystem. The DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) led the study in coordination with the National Institute of Standards and Technology

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

May 04, 2017

FOIA Best Practices Workshop Continues This Summer

The Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to announce two new topics and dates for our Best Practices Workshop series as we continue this initiative this summer.

Office of Information Policy, DOJ

May 03, 2017

GetMyFuture.org: Essential Youth Resources, Now

They say that life can be summed up as the process of a series of doors closing. By that, they mean that opportunities for taking different paths start to disappear as you move through life. It’s a logical sentiment, but there’s an obverse to it. When you’re young, all those doors are open. Doors as far as you can see. It’s all about learning how to make informed decisions about what doors to wander through.

Gay Gilbert

May 02, 2017

Build Your Audience by Hosting a Twitter Chat

Twitter is more than just a platform for sharing news and updates: it can be a tool for directly communicating with your community and understanding what is important to them. One way you can connect with your Twitter audience is by hosting a Twitter Chat. They can be a good way to discuss key topics,

AIDS.gov

May 01, 2017

A Deeper Look into the USDA.gov Website Redesign

We hope you are finding it easier to get the information you need on USDA.gov following the launch of our site redesign in March. We’ve already welcomed over 1 million visitors to the new site and we are pleased with the positive feedback we’ve received thus far. Our redesign makes it easier for you to

Bernetta Reese

Apr 26, 2017

Congress.gov 2017 Spring Cleaning: Download Search Results and Advanced Search Enhancements

Spring is a beautiful time of year in Washington, D.C. The temperature warms up; the cherry blossoms are out; and we frequently have an update of Congress.gov to share. In 2015 we added treaties and web-friendly bill text, and in 2016 we expanded the quick search feature. Today there is another round of enhancements to the Library of Congress website for

Andrew Weber

Apr 25, 2017

OIP Seeks Your Participation in the Development of the National FOIA Portal

The Office of Information Policy (OIP) is pleased to announce its collaboration with GSA’s 18F team on the development of a National FOIA Portal. This is the next step in a long line of OIP initiatives working towards a National FOIA Portal going back to 2010 with the launch of FOIA.gov. Most recently, the FOIA

Office of Information Policy, DOJ

Apr 20, 2017

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