eGovernment at W3C
Better Government Through Better Use of the Web.

The eGovernment Interest Group has just formed an Editorial Task Force. The mission of the Task Force is to ensure the documents published by group can be easily understood by non-technical readers, to bridge the gap between technology and policy.

Tim Berners-Lee has just released a new Design Issues paper titled Putting Government Data Online. The document, still not mature (per its status) acknowledges input from eGov IG Chairs and Members. This paper has several similarities with the sort of deliverable the IG expects to publish on Year 2. Stay tuned.

The eGov IG is discussing its new charter. There is a rough draft already available. Some of the areas of most interest so far are those around Open Government Data and how to put government data on the Web, and also how that data could be best consumed and accessed by citizens and other interested parties. The group expects to work on the draft in the coming days and deliver a final version before the end of July.

As part of its ongoing online process for public engagement in policymaking, the White House launched on May 21^st the Open Government Dialogue to collect ideas to inform the development of open government recommendations and the writing of subsequent policy and the development of open government projects.

Kevin Novak, co-Chair of the eGovernment Interest Group, submitted on behalf of the group an “idea” to the Dialogue entitled Ensuring Availability and Accessibility of Government Data and Information, where the importance and benefits of adopting Web standards is highlighted.

The group intends to monitor this and similar initiatives and provide input where necessary.