Welcome

The National Center for Digital Government (NCDG) seeks to build global research capacity, to advance practice, and to strengthen the network of researchers and practitioners engaged in building and using technology in government.

Visit our Research pages for more information on our recent presentations and publications and our People pages for more information about our staff, fellows, and researchers.

News Viktor Mayer-Schönberger has published Delete - The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. "Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget." Visit Mayer-Schonberger's website for a list of cities where he will be presenting this work. NCDG undergraduate Fellow, Conor White-Sullivan is featured in the Daily Hampshire Gazette as one of the founders of localocracy.org, which is set to launch next month. See "Localocracy.com aims to drive grassroots politics in Amherst" (log in may be required) Jane Fountain gave a keynote address at eGOVshare 2009 - eTransformation in Public Administration from e-Government to e-Governance: Sharing Experiences, a major, regional conference in Antalya, Turkey [more] Stuart Shulman gave an invited talk at the Ohio State University "Program in Statistics and Methodology" titled "Measuring Validity in Text Analysis" [more] Video from the October 30 NCDG lecture with Beth Noveck, US Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, is now available here. The National Center for Digital Government (NCDG) co-sponsored the 2nd Korea-U.S. Information and Communication Technology-Based Policy Forum at the World Bank on November 5, 2009. [more] Researchers in the Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP) at UMass Amherst and the University of Pittsburgh have launched a free, Web-based beta version of the Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT) to enable government officials to listen to and engage with the American public about regulations that impact their lives and businesses. [ more] Jane Fountain has been appointed to the World Economic Forum's Council on the Future of Government for a second year. The Future of Governments Council examines globally the public sector’s response to technological change, particularly how technological innovation impacts transparency, accountability, and civil society. Fountain is one of fourteen expertise invited to serve on this council. [PDF press release]   more news

Fountain Keynotes eGovShare 2009 in Turkey NCDG was pleased to host Hacettepe University's secretary General, Turhan Mentes September 24, 2009. Dr. Mentes' visit kicked off the Fall 2009 semester of NCDG events. Visit our calendar for more information about upcoming events and our events page for additional photos.. Recent Publications by NCDG Affiliates Charles M. Schweik. 2009. The Open Source Software Ecosystem. NCDG Working Paper #09-002. Matthew Hindman. 2008. The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton University Press.   Enrico Ferro, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, & Michael D. Williams, Eds. 2009. Handbook of Research on Overcoming Digital Divides: Constructing an Equitable and Competitive Information Society. IGI Global. Lazer, D. et al. 2009. Computational Social Science. Science, 323(5915), 721-723.   Hamel, M.P. & Schweik, C. 2009. Open Source Collaboration: Two Cases in the US Public Sector. First Monday, 14(1). Online. Luna Reyes, L. and Gil-Garcia, J. R. 2008. E-Government and Inter-Organizational Collaboration in Mexico: Survey Results [PDF]. NCDG Working Paper #08-003. Schellong, A. 2008. Citizen Relationship Management - A Study of CRM in Government. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishing. more publications

Current Projects Networked Governance:
Jane Fountain, NCDG Director, is investigating the structural, behavioral, and political antecedents of sustainable cross-agency relationships in the federal government. She is examining the implications of these relationships for state structure and the policymaking process. See one of her latest working papers and the Building Cross Agency Initiatives page for more information on the topic.

Collaboration in Free and Open Source Software and Open Content:
Charles Schweik, NCDG Associate Director, is currently conducting research around open source programming and open content projects as "commons" and as new paradigms for the production of scientific research. More information about his research is available here.

eRulemaking and Democracy:
Stuart Shulman, NCDG Associate Director, has been PI on National Science Foundation-funded research projects focusing on electronic rulemaking, human language technologies, coding across the disciplines, digital citizenship, and service-learning efforts in the United States. For more information on Dr. Shulman's research, see his web site. For more information on his e-rulemaking research click here.

Ethics in Science and Engineering:
Jane Fountain, NCDG Director, and Marilyn Billings, Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst are developing a beta site to test cybertools and cyberinfrastructure for an interdisciplinary, multimedia, and international online beta repository to support ethics in science and engineering. Visit the Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse (ESENCe) Beta Site here. Fountain, MJ Peterson, and several other faculty at UMass Amherst are also developing modules and frameworks to introduce international dimensions of ethics into S&E courses. For more information on this project, visit the International Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering Project page.

For more NCDG projects, please visit our Research section.