Reflections on a year in government from 11 U.S. Digital Corps fellows
To celebrate their first year in government, 11 U.S. Digital Corps Fellows reflect on what they have learned.
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News and Events on Our Work
122 posts
U.S. Digital Corps
Making Impact at Scale: Software Engineering in the Federal Government
Engineering fellows with the U.S. Digital Corps share their paths to becoming software engineers and why they decide to use their skills to improve government services.
Welcome to the NEW Digital.gov
We’ve been working on a new version of Digital.gov, and we’re ready to make it available to you.
Government Launches Login.Gov to Simplify Access to Public Services
Joel Minton, a member of the U.S. Digital Service, is working with GSA’s Technology Transformation Service as the director of login.gov. Tom Mills is the Chief Technology Architect at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In early April, the U.S. Digital Service and 18F launched login.gov, a single sign-on solution for government websites that will enable
Emerging Tech and Open Data for a More Open and Accountable Government
Open data and emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers, such as blockchain—hold vast potential to transform public services held back by bureaucracy and outdated IT systems.
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
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.
Federal Pilot to Integrate Public Services Into Intelligent Personal Assistants
The demand for more automated, self-service access to United States public services, when and where citizens need them, grows each day—and so do advances in the consumer technologies like Intelligent Personal Assistants designed to meet those challenges. The U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA)
To Get Things Done, You Need Great, Secure Tools
To folks new to government, one of the most surprising differences between our work and work in the private sector are the barriers in accessing commercially available software, and commercially available Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in particular. There are good reasons for these barriers: the government places premiums on considerations such as security, privacy, accessibility, license management,
DigitalGov Readers and Subscribers: We Want to Talk to You (Again)
We at DigitalGov want to hear more about you – your job, your role, the challenges you face — all of it — as you work to deliver more secure, effective, and reliable digital services for the public.
DigitalGov University in Review: 2016 Training Trends
Thanks to your participation, DigitalGov University (DGU), the events platform for DigitalGov, hosted over 90 events with 6,648 attendees from over 100 agencies across federal, tribal, state, and local governments.
GSA launches new AI, Virtual Reality, and Authentication Programs
Today we’re launching three new initiatives powered by GSA Digital Communities that leap federal agencies ahead on some of the most innovative new capabilities becoming available to our programs — Artificial Intelligence, Virtual/Augmented Reality, and the U.S. Digital Registry. These new Communities and portal are products of inter-agency collaboration and our shared commitment pushing the
DigitalGov Readers and Subscribers: We Want to Talk to You
As you know, over the last few years DigitalGov has surfaced the innovative advancements many are making across the government space while providing a platform for learning best practices and coming together as a community. Over the course of the next few weeks, a small team from
Dear Search: Reading Between the Lines of Search Data
Welcome to the first Dear Search article, an occasional series where the DigitalGov Search team addresses common search questions. Dear Search, Right now, I am building up user research services that can be offered to product owners on a regular or as-needed basis. So, being able to look at search trends and offer advice to
Analytics Success Series: USA.gov
USA.gov’s Analytics Success: using analytics data to inform design and responsivity to create a better experience for the user Last year, the USA.gov team found themselves facing a challenge. We were in need of a new content management system for our websites, USA.gov and Gobierno.USA.gov, which help people find and understand the most frequently requested
Analytics Success Series: Health Resources & Services Administration
Health Resources and Services Administration’s Analytics Success: Using Analytics to Reduce Content and Improve User Experience Unlike out-of-town guests, you want your web visitors to stick around. So, if your site continues to see a bounce rate that stubbornly refuses to drop—it’s time to make some changes. That’s exactly what happened to the Health Resources
Analytics Success Series: USAJOBS
USAJOBS’ Analytics Success: using analytics to create accurate testing strategies. Accurate testing strategies are crucial to ensure quality products. Hi-fidelity approaches ensure QA efforts are testing in a true-to-life manner, similar to real-world users. Inaccurate, lo-fidelity testing can miss situational bugs that become showstoppers in production. USAJOBS is leveraging the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) to
Analytics Success Series: Federal Trade Commission
FTC’s Analytics Success: Making mission-related tasks easier for the user to find In the summer of 2015, members of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) Web team worked with their FTC colleagues to analyze Digital Analytics Program (DAP) Google Analytics data (onsite search queries, landing pages, pageviews, etc.) for FTC.gov. We found
DNSSEC vs. Elastic Load Balancers: the Zone Apex Problem
This is the final post in the 5-part series, The Right Tools for the Job: Re-Hosting DigitalGov Search to a Dynamic Infrastructure Environment. Federal websites are required to implement DNSSEC, which relies on knowing exactly what server is responding to a request. In Amazon Web Services (AWS), the problem of unreliable servers is solved by
Let’s Encrypt Those CNAMES, Shall We?
This is post 4 in the 5-part series, The Right Tools for the Job: Re-Hosting DigitalGov Search to a Dynamic Infrastructure Environment. This post references the previous posts frequently, so please read those before reading this one if you haven’t done so already. In addition to the DNS challenges created by offering “masked” domains such
