Friday, August 15, 2008

FOIA Friday - August 15, 2008

Earlier this week, I blogged about the Buckeye Institute's new transparency in government initiative. As part of that initiative, they've launched OhioSunshine.org, a website about all things 'public' in Ohio.

If you've never edited a wiki, now is the time to learn. OhioSunshine is a wiki, an on-line encyclopedia, if you will, that allows any user to add or edit content. I'd never contributed to a wiki before, but I wanted the link to Toledo's public record policy to be on the page. So I went to the help page, read the instructions, created a Toledo page and added a link to the city's policy. I was also able to put a comment about who to contact for public records requests.

This new website is going to be a terrific tool for increasing our ability to monitor and track what government does. Since the content is user generated, we can add pages for taxing jurisdictions likes schools and agencies, add budgets, provide information and then have discussion about the data.

I encourage you to contribute to and use this new portal so we will have, as their subheading says:

11 million pairs of eyes ensuring good government in Ohio

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