How We Will Measure the Success of Open Government at HHS
We anticipate a progression over time in how we measure the success of Open Government at HHS.
Initially, that measurement will be qualitative – i.e., how well we execute on this plan. We will report progress with respect to execution of the plan to the public on our Open Government website (www.hhs.gov/open) on a quarterly basis, in the “Evaluating Our Progress” area.
One of our key tasks is to develop the right quantitative metrics for the success of Open Government at HHS. Our current metrics are relatively basic:
Transparency:
- Number of high value data sets and tools published
- Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) backlog, time to respond, and total requests processed
Participation and Collaboration:
- Number of opportunities for the public to provide input into the work of the department
- Number of HHS public-private collaborations
These metrics will need to be refined and others added via a cross-HHS dialogue as our work progresses. We will also look to the public to help us define relevant measures. As described subsequently in the Participation and Collaboration section of the plan, we will be developing standard metrics for measuring the success of efforts to engage the public. These metrics will go beyond volume of participation (e.g., number of comments received) to the impact of participation (e.g., number of ideas from the public that are adopted and what impact they have on results delivered by the agency).
This points to the ultimate destination of our journey to measure the success of Open Government at HHS: its impact on the results produced by HHS. As we have said previously, the central objective of Open Government at HHS is to enable the department to deliver better on its mission of advancing the health and well-being of the nation. The ultimate measure of success of Open Government should be improvement in the fundamental efficiency and effectiveness of HHS. In our quarterly reports on our Open Government execution, we will describe the qualitative and quantitative impact that Open Government is having on HHS performance, as part of an ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of our Open Government programs and policies.
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OpenGovHHS says: "These metrics will need to be refined and others added via a cross-HHS dialogue as our work progresses. We will also look to the public to help us define relevant measures. As described subsequently in the Participation and Collaboration section of the plan, we will be developing standard metrics for measuring the success of efforts to engage the public." It is not clear to me (i.e., transparent) how HHS is engaging interested persons (like myself) to participate in the collaboration of developing metrics for measuring its progress. May I suggest that, without changing or adding to the text of the OpenGov Plan 1.1 (above), it would help if you could add a web-link to "cross-HHS dialogue" or "the public to help us define relevant measures". That would help lead people to those discussions (assuming that they have been happening over the past year).