A regulatory what?

Posted August 16th, 2010 by Gray Brooks - FCC New Media

The business of regulatory agencies can sometimes be a bit obscure.  There is a swath of legislation known as administrative law that governs how the Federal Communications Commission serves the public.  The same applies to sister agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration , and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  It is very important to all of us to make the FCC as open and transparent an agency as possible, but also to make the work that we do more understandable and accessible to everyone.  Whether blogging about upcoming litigation or sharing a screencast of how to file a formal consumer complaint, we’ll continue to scale out and revamp these efforts.   

Regulations.gov, EPA, and others recently held a contest asking citizens to submit videos explaining the federal rulemaking process and showing why it matters to you and me.  The winner was recently announced and we wanted to share it here at FCC.gov, too.  Enjoy! 

/WhatYouAreLookingFor

Posted July 16th, 2010 by Gray Brooks - FCC New Media

Here at the FCC over the last year, you may have noticed new features and functionality the FCC has been rolling out to improve and modernize its Web presence. One quiet and continuing goal has been to improve the user experience by creating simple pages with easy-to-remember URLs where you can reliably find what you are looking for. This is a work in progress and far from complete, but we wanted to highlight a few such hubs of information that are worth looking into and keeping an eye on. Each new release will continue to mature through iterations, so join the discussion by letting us know your ideas. There's much more to come.

• At FCC.gov/blog, you can follow the agency's work as well as learn more about the day-to-day activity that drives it.
• At FCC.gov/calendar, you can keep track of upcoming public events and learn more information on how to attend as well as engage online.
• At FCC.gov/connect, you can easily access the ever-growing social media presence of the agency, with links to the FCC pages on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and more.
• At FCC.gov/data, you can find links to the large amount of public data available at FCC.gov, broken down by data type as well as by office or bureau.
• At FCC.gov/live, you can watch public events streamed live over the internet as well as browse the archives to watch previous events in full.
• At FCC.gov/onlinetutorials, you can watch screencasts explaining how to use and interact with different parts of FCC.gov.
• At FCC.gov/openmeetings, you can find relevant information, documents, and video for Open Commission Meetings, both before, and afterwards as more information is released.
• At FCC.gov/rss, you can find the continuously growing list of RSS and XML feeds which allow you to subscribe to updates to any number of different areas.
• At FCC.gov/workshops, you can find relevant information, documents, and video for the public events hosted by the FCC.

Growing FCC.gov/data

Posted April 20th, 2010 by Gray Brooks - FCC New Media

Since the launch of FCC.gov/data earlier this year, the FCC has stayed busy adding further information and increasing the number of available data sets.  Though /data originally contained scores of data downloads, several dozen search engines, and over 50 XML feeds, we hold to the pledge that new data sets will be regularly added to FCC.gov/data, and the work to present the data in more functional and easily accessible formats will be ongoing. The FCC remains committed to become a more open and data-driven agency and indeed to become a model agency in government transparency. 

The FCC shares the understanding that all public data should be easily browsable, strongly searchable, and available via bulk download and syndication, for free and in open formats.  There is much progress to be made, but the role and the mission of FCC.gov/data will continue to be the online clearinghouse for the data of the Federal Communications Commission.  In addition to the 'Featured Data Sets' that were recently added to the sidebar of Reboot.FCC.gov, we also wanted to begin highlighting some of the new additions to FCC.gov/data. 

The Office of Engineering & Technology: 

• Maps of All Full-Service Digital Television Stations Authorized by the FCC
• XML Feed for Experimental Licensing System - Recent Grants Issued
• XML Feed for Draft Laboratory Division Publications

The Office of the General Counsel:

• 2009 FCC FOIA Report Data

International Bureau:

• International Bureau Filing System - Recent Filings
• International Bureau Filing System - Recent Actions
• International Bureau Filing System - Recent Public Notices
• International Bureau Filing System - Queue Satellite Report

Office of the Managing Director:

• Contract Actions (Published by the Federal Procurement Data System)
• XML Feed for New FCC Public Events on FCC.gov/Calendar

Just as importantly as adding new data, we will also continue striving to improve the existing data offerings so as to offer them in more useful and open formats.  Throughout FCC.gov/data and Reboot, you can join the discussion on both general and specific agency reform.  Whether your insight is on how CGB can improve its data offerings or more broadly, how the FCC can better employ data, delve deeper into FCC.gov/data and take part in improving the FCC.

Today's Open Meeting

Posted January 20th, 2010 by Gray Brooks - FCC New Media

At 10:30 AM EST, tune in to watch today's Open Commission Meeting at FCC.gov/live.  You can find background documents from the meeting at FCC.gov/OpenMeetings and it will be live-blogged at Blogband. 

Upcoming events at FCC.gov/live

Posted January 11th, 2010 by Gray Brooks - FCC New Media

This week and next marks the inaugural live video streams for Reboot.FCC.gov.  No matter where in the world you are, you’ll be able to tune in and watch as it happens: a Media Ownership Workshop on Financial and Markeplace Issues (tomorrow, 9:00 A.M. ET - Agenda); an Open Internet Workshop on Innovation, Investment, and the Open Internet (this Wednesday, 4:30 P.M. ET – Agenda); a further Open Internet Workshop on Consumers, Transparency, and the Open Internet (January 19, 1:00 P.M. ET); and the next Open Commission Meeting (January 20, 10:00 A.M. ET).  . 

Each event will be streamed live at FCC.gov/live and moving forward, you can keep an eye on the FCC Calendar to better track further events that are scheduled.  Tune in and join the discussion.