Agencies will be under greater pressure in 2010 to post more of their data online for public scrutiny.

It might be the Education Department unveiling new levels of detail of national test scores. Or it could be the Energy Department offering up data on the country's carbon footprint. Or it could be data showing which multimillion-dollar government information technology projects are behind schedule and over budget.

Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, predicts this newfound transparency will elicit a more informed public oversight to help guide federal policies and programs.

"One of the big shifts you are going to see in 2010 ... is shifting toward what we're calling ‘high-value data sets': data that's going to move [us] more toward policy, whether we're looking at data around health care, data around energy or data around education," Kundra said. "We're unlocking the value of data across the public sector."

The administration has already gotten the ball rolling. In June, the Office of Management and Budget launched a new Web site called the IT Dashboard, which quickly sums up for anyone who visits the site how well agencies manage their large IT projects. The dashboard uses a color-coded, traffic-light-style grading system, timelines and temperature bars to show how a project is meeting expectations for schedule, cost and effectiveness.

The dashboard has already had an effect. Within a month of it going live, the Veterans Affairs Department halted work on 45 troubled projects, and after further review, cancelled 12 of them.

"In 2010, as we move forward, it's going to be: How do we continue this momentum?" Kundra said. "You're going to see greater focus on: How do you use platforms like the IT Dashboard, not just in terms of IT investment management, but also in ... how they are driving performance?"

Under the president's Open Government Directive, each agency must post at least three high-value data sets online, Kundra said. Already, the Homeland Security Department's Citizenship and Immigration Services launched a dashboard to show how quickly it is processing visa and citizenship applications, and it improved processing times, he said.

Cybersecurity

Similarly, OMB and the interagency Chief Information Officers Council are developing a cybersecurity dashboard that will have public and classified components to help agencies address and assess cyber threats, he said.

The cybersecurity dashboard, dubbed cyberscope, will help change the government's approach to cybersecurity from one of box-checking compliance reporting to "real-time monitoring of our cybersecurity environment," said Vance Hitch, Justice Department CIO and co-chairman of the CIO Council's Information Security and Identity Management Committee.

Agencies will be required to post security-related data, such as breaches of government networks, into a database; that information can be shared with other agencies in real time to improve their own security management, Hitch said.

Emerging technologies

Kundra also is pressing agencies to adopt cloud computing in 2010. Cloud computing refers to agencies renting access to servers, storage and applications over the Internet, rather than owning and maintaining that hardware and software themselves.

The Virginia-based research firm INPUT recently surveyed 37 federal IT managers and found that cloud computing is among the top five emerging technologies agencies are eager to adopt, said Deniece Peterson, manager of industry analysis for INPUT.

Also named in the top five:

• Virtualization, a process that permits remote access to storage devices and takes advantage of empty space on underused servers.

• Service-oriented architecture, the integration of IT systems to improve service.

• Open-source software, on which users can see and alter code, allowing for rapid and inexpensive customization and debugging.

• Geospatial technologies, such as mapping, which enable the visual presentation of data on the dashboard tools OMB intends to roll out.

These technologies appeal to agencies because they save money, cut energy consumption and improve efficiency and transparency, all key administration goals, Peterson said.

Unlike past technology investments, cloud computing could allow agencies to pay for only what they use without investing in physical infrastructure, she said.

However, many of those INPUT surveyed said they were nervous about adoption because of security risks posed by technologies like cloud computing, under which adopters may share servers with other agencies or vendor customers, she said.