National Archives and Records Administration

  • NSA, State and nearly every other agency are developing "fixes" to protect unauthorized employees from taking data. Experts say employees need to understand why the rules are in place and how they benefit both the organization and worker. OMB says one way to improve the situation is by reducing the number of federal employees with security clearances-an initiative that already is underway.

    May 21, 2014
  • The Obama administration's second Open Government National Action Plan introduces 23 new or expanded commitments to open government, including measures to strengthen whistleblower protections and improve the declassification process.

    December 06, 2013
  • The Public Interest Declassification Board wants high-level attention to address ever-increasing shortcomings in the way agencies classify and declassify documents. The system is considered by many broken and now is being inundated by electronic records. The National Declassification Center has completed equity referral quality assurance on 278 million pages, and completed all processing of more than 118 million pages of this backlog.

    November 22, 2013
  • Current and former Obama administration officials' use of personal email addresses and secret, secondary email accounts to conduct official business came under scrutiny Tuesday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said her use of a secret account was to do her job more efficiently.

    September 10, 2013
  • Joseph Frankovic looked around his office at the Federal Register and saw that it was being overrun by binder clips. At a time when agencies are struggling to save budget dollars wherever they can, Frankovic saw an opportunity to make a difference - and he took it.

    August 29, 2013
  • GSA led a 12-member interagency working group to create a set of measures specifically aimed at defining the usefulness of social media for agencies. The agency also released an API that lets users create tools to bring together government social media feeds in one place. Both tools are called for in the Digital Government Strategy.

    February 20, 2013
  • While social media has permeated nearly all aspects of American life, in many corners of the government, employees and managers are still figuring out how Facebook, Twitter and a host of other digital technologies can help them do their jobs better. A new report from the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton presents case studies of effective uses of social media and provides tips for developing a coherent strategy.

    January 08, 2013
  • Pamela Wright talks about innovation and paper records at NARA. Max Stier of the Partnership for Public Service elaborates about the best federal agencies to work based on the nonprofit group's survey. A retired federal couple, one is on FERS and the other on CSRS, tell how they make it work.

    December 13, 2012
  • The Public Interest Declassification Board submitted 14 recommendations to President Barack Obama at the end of November. The suggestions cover everything from moving out of the three-tiered classification system to a two-tiered process to strengthening the National Archives and Records Administration's National Declassification Center to giving federal employees "safe harbor" protection if they adhere to a rigorous risk management process in how they perform their classification duties.

    December 10, 2012
  • The National Archives and Records Administration awarded technology company Unisys Corporation a contract worth up to $7.2 million to oversee the transition of the agency's 4,500 users to the cloud-based Google Apps for email and collaboration.

    November 29, 2012
  • Casey Coleman, CIO at the GSA, gives a preview of the 2012 Executive Leadership Conference. Lynn Bernabei, a partner with Bernabei and Watchel, discusses the House's sweeping update to the law protecting federal whistleblowers. Tom Fox of the Partnership for Public Service tells how managers can keep their workforce motivated in tough times. Miriam Nisbet of the National Archives discusses a new website aimed at speeding up the FOIA request process.

    October 02, 2012
  • The Environmental Protection Agency partnered with the Commerce Department and National Archives to launch a new online portal aimed at streamlining the Freedom of Information Act request process for both the public and federal agencies.

    October 02, 2012
  • A number of agencies have made high-profile migrations to cloud platforms and the Obama administration has issued sweeping guidance mandating agencies identify and transition services and applications to host in the cloud. For a look at how agencies are faring in their shifts to the cloud and the issues they continue to face, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp hosted a panel discussion, "Clearing the Fog Around Cloud Computing," sponsored by Level 3 Communications.

    September 28, 2012
  • Agencies dedicated more money and personnel to FOIA processing in 2011, but requests grew even faster.

    September 10, 2012