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New OMB policy aims to make federal agency code open source

The White House will release a draft policy Thursday for sharing source code among federal agencies, including a pilot program that will make a portion of federal code open source.

In a blog post, U.S. CIO Tony Scott said the program will save taxpayer dollars by avoiding duplicative software purchases, and promote innovation and collaboration across federal agencies.

“This policy is consistent with the federal government’s long-standing policy of technology neutrality through which we seek to ensure that federal investments in IT are merit-based, improve the performance of our government and create value for the American people,” Scott writes.

The open source policy comes as directed in the Second Open Government National Action Plan, which was released in 2014. That plan states:

“No later than December 31, 2015, the Administration will work through the federal agencies to develop an open source software policy that, together with the Digital Services Playbook, will support improved access to custom software code developed for the Federal government.”

The policy would require agencies to release at least 20 percent of their newly-developed custom code as open-source. This custom code is that which has been developed by third parties — custom code that is developed by government agencies is automatically considered a “government work,” making it open source by default.

OMB will also be launching Project Open Source, an online repository of tools, best practices, and schemas to help covered agencies implement this guidance within the next 90 days.

Federal agencies have deployed thousands of open source projects since 2014. The Education Department’s College Scorecard, the General Services Administration’s federalwide analytics dashboard, and a tool hosted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that uses data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development are among government projects that have their source code publicly available on GitHub, an open source software development tool.

The White House this week has announced several tech-focused projects, including a new open data portal that melds tools from various federal and local government agencies to help communities find ways to improve their residents’ lives.

The announcements come as President Barack Obama will become the first president to keynote the South by Southwest conference, a weeklong tech, film and music conference beginning Friday in Austin, Texas.

The policy will be open for public comment at sourcecode.cio.gov.

Contact the reporter on this story via email at greg.otto@fedscoop.com, or follow him on Twitter at @gregotto. His OTR and PGP info can be found here. Subscribe to the Daily Scoop for stories like this in your inbox every morning by signing up here: fdscp.com/sign-me-on.

White House launches innovative acquisition labs

The White House is building labs for agencies to test and tinker with innovative acquisition methodologies, hoping to improve the way the government buys technology.

U.S. Chief Acquisition Officer Anne Rung and U.S. CIO Tony Scott issued a memo to CFO Act agency CIOs and CAOs Wednesday directing them to establish IT-focused innovative acquisition labs by May 2.

Those labs should “provide the agency’s workforce with a clear pathway to test and document new acquisition practices and facilitate fresh perspectives on existing practices” and “help programs and [integrated project teams] successfully execute emerging and well-established acquisition practices to achieve better results for the taxpayer.”

“These new labs will provide a pathway to test and implement more innovative approaches to acquisitions, with a strong emphasis on improving IT investments,” Rung wrote in a White House blog.

This guidance follows the spirit of innovative acquisition spaces like the Department of Health and Human Services’ Buyers Club and the Department of Homeland Security’s Procurement Innovation Lab, both stood up in recent years to help the departments improve the way they buy goods and services, particularly IT.

Rung has had an idea in the works for this type of agency innovative acquisition safe space for a while now. She mentioned in June 2015 that she wanted to replicate the Buyers Club model governmentwide.

The HHS Buyers Club and its leader, Mark Naggar, offered support to agencies as they stand up their labs.

“The HHS Buyers Club has been front and center since April 2014, dissecting the various problems, developing unique solutions, and collaborating throughout HHS and across the federal government with successful results, lessons learned, and frequent feedback to address and resolve the problems at hand,” Naggar wrote in a blog post. “While our office is housed within the IDEA Lab at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we educate employees across government about ways their agencies and offices can get involved.”

Rung’s team at the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy last year also partnered with the U.S. Digital Service to launch the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Training and Development Program to train selected agency procurement officials on buying IT in a more effective manner. The first cadre from that program will graduate in April, and this new guidance will give those digital IT acquisition professionals, and others, a space to unleash what they’ve learned, the memo explains.

Agencies are also required to appoint an “acquisition innovation advocate” who will “encourage testing of new ideas and better ways of executing existing practices and working with OMB and other agencies to share best practices and lessons learned.” The advocates must be in place by March 31, the guidance says.

The guidance recognizes the increasing importance for agencies to consider more effective ways to procure technology, citing the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act as a driver for the labs. Agencies are also directed to the Digital Services Playbook and TechFAR Handbook as guides on developing and applying innovative acquisition best practices.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been an early adopter of the innovative acquisition lab model with support from the General Services Administration’s 18F and its consulting team. 18F and the White House’s U.S. Digital Service will provide similar support under the new guidance to help agencies taking part in a separate digital innovative acquisition lab pilot.

Contact the reporter on this story via email at Billy.Mitchell@FedScoop.com or follow him on Twitter @BillyMitchell89. Subscribe to the Daily Scoop to get all the federal IT news you need in your inbox every morning at fdscp.com/sign-me-on.

Microsoft looking for feds to trial new SQL for Linux

Susie Adams, Microsoft Federal CTO. (FedScoop)

Microsoft, following its shock announcement this week that it will make a version of its back-office flagship SQL Server that runs on the open-source operating system Linux, is looking for government clients to volunteer for a special preview of the new product.

“They will get to test drive the core relational database, develop and test applications, and try out some new features of SQL Server 2016 that haven’t been publicly released yet,” Microsoft Federal CTO Susie Adams told FedScoop of the early adopters.

She said the private preview program, announced this week, would include federal government clients and that the company was already talking to customers about participating.

The new version will be made generally available by the middle of next year, Microsoft announced in a blog post Monday, which set the tech world back on its heels. SQL Server, a database program widely used in large enterprises like big companies or government departments, is reportedly one of the companies most profitable products. The move would have been unthinkable for Microsoft a few years ago, when then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux a “cancer.”

Adams said the move to a Linux-compatible version of SQL Server was driven by customer demand, “just as much, proportionally, by demand from government customers, federal customers, as from commercial customers.”

Analysts said the move would enable the company to compete more effectively with Oracle and IBM, who already produce Linux-compatible database products.

“The world we live in is a multi-platform world,” Adams added, “Customers want to be able to take advantage of the innovations we are offering on SQL Server, no matter what platform they are using.”

Sean McAfee to run DHS cyber outpost in Silicon Valley

The Department of Homeland Security has sent one of its own to Silicon Valley to lead its cybersecurity efforts on the West Coast.

Sean McAfee, who previously served as the deputy chief for the DHS National Cybersecurity Assessments and Technical Services (NCATS) team, will lead the efforts of the National Protection & Programs Directorate as it works to find private sector technology that can be used across the federal government.

McAfee started working in the Silicon Valley office Feb. 2. He has been working with Deron McElroy, a West Coast cybersecurity advisor for DHS, while also getting input from NPPD and the department’s Science and Technology Directorate.

According to an email obtained by FedScoop that was sent to all NPPD employees by Phyllis Schneck, deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications for NPPD, the office is “meant to provide broader understanding of DHS roles and responsibilities in cybersecurity, to participate in regional events, and to facilitate dialogue while supporting operational activities between Silicon Valley cybersecurity partners and DHS component organizations.”

“NPPD seeks innovative capabilities and new developments that can be applied immediately to DHS cyber operations,” the email reads. “NPPD operational activities in this office will include the sharing of threat information, establishment of technical capability demos for broader stakeholder engagement, continued development of the ‘DHS Hacker-in-Residency’ program, and improving upon the lessons learned from our industry and government partners.”

Before heading to California, McAfee was responsible for overseeing the execution of the cyber hygiene operations during Heartbleed, which influenced the streamlining of information security incidents to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. He has worked in various capacities at the department since 2008 and holds a master’s degree in forensic psychology from Marymount University

The office he will head is the second DHS Silicon Valley outpost to start operations in the past few months. The S&T directorate’s office there recently issued its first award to Pulzze Systems, a California-based company devoted to securing the Internet of Things.

Contact the reporter on this story via email at greg.otto@fedscoop.com, or follow him on Twitter at @gregotto. His OTR and PGP info can be found here. Subscribe to the Daily Scoop for stories like this in your inbox every morning by signing up here: fdscp.com/sign-me-on.

Citizens more satisfied with e-gov than government overall — report

American citizens continue to be more satisfied in their digital interactions with the federal government than they are with the feds overall, according to a new analysis published Wednesday.

ForeSee’s E-Government Satisfaction Index for the fourth quarter of 2015 — the 50th consecutive quarter the customer experience analytics company has compiled such as report — shows that citizens’ satisfaction with the federal government’s digital enterprises exceeds their overall satisfaction with the government by 11 points.

The federal government as a whole scored 75 in e-government satisfaction in the Foresee analysis. But that compares to an overall satisfaction score of 64 in a separate 2015 report by ASCI, another customer service analytics company.

This trend has been going on for the better part of a decade, Dave Lewan, vice president of ForeSee and the report’s author, told FedScoop. While citizens’ satisfaction with the federal government has been up and (mostly) down since 2007, they’ve remained fairly happy with its digital properties, made evident by a gradual five-point increase since ForeSee’s first measure of e-government satisfaction in 2003.

“For years ForeSee data has revealed that citizens want to access data through digital channels,” Lewan said, pointing to convenience and consistency of communications and services as key contributors to agencies’ digital success.

A comparison of ForeSee’s data on e-government satisfaction and ASCI’s data on overall government satisfaction since 2007. (ForeSee)

Lewan said it’s a win-win for government because these digital services, after initial investment, lower the cost to serve Americans.

“Overall, delivering a great digital experience is a win for government and those they serve,” he said. “It’s been going on for a long time and agency managers are meeting the challenge. While satisfaction with government services overall has declined, websites have delivered a significantly better experience.”

“The results have been nothing short of stunning: e-government is fulfilling its potential better than anyone could have hoped,” the 50th report says.

“Despite complaints about the federal government, federal websites give citizens the ability to get information, participate, and collaborate with the government with transparency and ease that is constantly improving. Satisfaction with websites rivals that of the private sector, and the best federal websites outperform the best private-sector websites, despite limited resources and bureaucratic challenges that should make the pace of change slow and difficult.”

Yes, that’s correct: Americans are more satisfied with the best federal websites — the Social Security Administration annually tops ForeSee’s index with multiple domains near or above scores of 90 — than Amazon.com and Google, which scored 86 and 78 respectively.

The federal government, however, is a big, federated enterprise — there are plenty of bad apples out there, too. Websites like the Depart of Veterans Affairs main website, the General Service Administration’s main website and the Labor Department’s disability website score in the low 60s or below.

ForeSee’s index is based on more than 185,000 responses from users prompted to give their opinions while visiting federal websites.

VA awards $22B IT contracts for MyVA transformation

The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded numerous contracts amounting to $22.3 billion Tuesday for the technical support services, program management and infrastructure development behind its MyVA transformation.

Using the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation acquisition program, or T4NG, the department Tuesday awarded 21 companies of various sizes contracts to support MyVA, a departmentwide initiative launched last year to improve customer service to veterans.

“This suite of contracts will provide solutions to support IT security, health IT, and telecommunications, including cloud mobility, cybersecurity support, mobile application development, and application development and sustainment,” a VA spokesperson told FedScoop.

The spokesperson added, “Through awards like those in the T4NG suite, VA is harnessing internal capabilities and private sector innovation to enhance strategic partnership and expand the reach of services available to veterans and their families. Ensuring that the department acquires the right solutions, the right way, from the right sources allows VA the tools to keep pace in an ever-changing IT environment.”

VA developed the awards as a multi-agency indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity task order contract. VA awarded places on the contracts issued Tuesday to 10 service-disabled veteran owned small businesses, two other small businesses and nine large businesses, including Accenture Federal Services; SRA International Inc.; Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.; and IBM.

“This T4NG award is one of the many ways the department is supporting the MyVA breakthrough initiatives by directly providing the technology that our Veterans need to support the services they receive from VA,” Secretary Robert McDonald said in a statement. “The T4NG will help meet and strengthen VA’s long-term technology needs.”

Cobert: Data drives OPM policies

The Office of Personnel Management is exploring new ways to let data drive its human resources and operations policies, acting Director Beth Cobert said.

OPM kicked off its two-day 2016 Research Summit Tuesday with American University’s School of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., collaborating with researchers from 19 different universities and policymakers from more than 20 different agencies to “shape the human capital research agenda for the future,” Cobert said in her opening remarks.

“In the federal government we want our decisions about human capital policy to be grounded in research,” Cobert said, citing the influence of the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey on senior executives’ workforce management and the White House National Science and Technology Council’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Team’s use of research to inform OPM on “how people make decisions to improve the lives of Americans and make government more efficient.”

“[M]embers of the team are helping OPM improve how information about Federal Employee Health Benefit plan choices is presented to employees during the annual open season,” Cobert said. “Research tells us that the choices employees make about health plans are affected not only by the quality of the information but how user-friendly the presentation is.”

Cobert said that connection between research data and policy is one of OPM’s nine strategic agencywide goals — “to foster a culture where evidence-based policy setting is the norm,” she said, and collaborate with other private, public and academic organizations in doing so.

“The ultimate goal of all of these collaborations and of this first inaugural research summit is to help us establish a research agenda for federal human resources management that will build the foundation for how we shape human capital policy for years to come,” she said.

This research is becoming increasingly important as the federal government strives to adapt in how it manages millions of employees during a time when traditional work roles and workplaces are evolving to be more digital.

“Research can help us understand how to provide the flexibility of telework while not losing the human connection to the workplace,” Cobert said. “I certainly appreciate and think about our ability to use telework when I’m on the phone at 3 a.m. during a snowstorm deciding how to balance the need to keep the government running with the need to keep people safe.”

Cobert added: “By making sure that our human resources policies are informed by the most rigorous and up-to-date research, OPM can design more effective human resources policies and help the federal government move to the forefront as an employer of choice. The government’s ability to attract, develop and retain the talent we need is especially critical in the current world of dwindling resources.”

Summit participants joined collaborative groups to survey gaps in research around federal HR and operations policy, and will report back on their findings at the event’s conclusion.

IRS suspends online ID protection in wake of new fraud

The IRS has been caught on the back foot again by fraudsters — this week announcing the temporary shutdown of its online Identity Protection PIN tool for taxpayers.

The service has been suspended after reports that taxpayers who had been victims of tax-related identity fraud in prior years found their personal identification numbers had been compromised.

“Through the end of February, the IRS had confirmed and stopped 800 fraudulent returns using an IP PIN,” the agency said in a statement.

The statement says 2.7 million taxpayers were issued an Identity Protection PIN by mail because they might have been the victims of ID theft in prior years. No taxpayer who had been issued a PIN could file a tax return without one — an additional layer of security against fraudsters filing fake returns. Of those 2.7 million, approximately 130,000 people, or one in 20, attempted to retrieve their number online — a service offered for those who lost or forgotten their PIN.

A report posted by security journalist Brian Krebs found that people who had been previously victimized were having their PINs stolen via the IRS website, probably due to the use of knowledge-based authentication, or KBA, questions for taxpayers to prove their identity and obtain the number.

The news is another blow to the agency, and to its use of KBA to identify taxpayers online.

Knowledge-based authentication was at the heart of a breach last year, which saw fraudulent returns filed via the agency’s “Get Transcript” application. Last week, the IRS again revised the amount of people affected by that breach, saying more than 700,000 Social Security numbers and other sensitive information may have been stolen.

This year’s tax filing season has also brought another round of large-caliber data breaches. Over the past 48 hours, reports have surfaced that Cupertino, California-based data security company Seagate Technology and New York-based publisher Mansueto Ventures had their employees’ W-2 data stolen by criminals.

More details on GSA’s new IT category executive, Bill Zielinksi

After stints as Social Security Administration chief information officer and leading U.S. CIO Tony Scott’s Agency Oversight Team, Bill Zielinski has joined the General Service Administration to ensure its IT acquisition offerings align with the evolving federalwide acquisition practice category management.

GSA Assistant Commissioner Mary Davie — who runs the Office of Integrated Technology Services, or ITS — within the Federal Acquisition Service, confirmed to FedScoop that Zielinksi would join her team as IT category executive, an announcement she first made on Twitter and FedScoop reported Monday. Zielinski will also serve as director of the Office of Strategic Programs.

“Bill was chosen because of his experience, skill and relationships across the federal government and with industry,” Davie told FedScoop in an email. “He brings some great perspectives as someone who has been an IT manager, a CIO, and has worked at OMB. His understanding of how technology can support and enhance agency missions is critical for ITS to succeed in supporting our customer agencies. He’s perfect for the position.”

Category management is an acquisition approach promoted by the Office of Management and Budget and Chief Acquisition Officer Anne Rung to make the buying and managing of commoditized goods and services by the federal government more unified and strategic by grouping similar products into categories. In February, OMB announced 11 governmentwide category managers who will run the 10 main categories of government spend under the approach.

The federal government buys about $50 billion worth in IT products and services annually, and GSA deals with a big portion of that contracting activity. The IT schedules alone make up about $17 billion in business each year, and there’s billions more on top of that in GSA’s other governmentwide contract vehicles, like Alliant and the 8(a) STARS programs.

In his new position, Zielinski will be responsible for overseeing all of GSA’s IT category teams — which, for now, focus on the areas of hardware, software, telecommunications, IT services and consulting, and cybersecurity — as it transitions to be a more “category-focused organization,” Davie said.

“Bill will help guide the categories with his experience and knowledge of IT, acquisition, and customers,” she said. “This includes helping determine appropriate IT solutions and working on cross-category initiatives.”

In the current structuring of the Federal Acquisition Service, Davie said Zielinski will oversee IT units across the organization, including the USAccess and Federal Public Key Infrastructure identity management programs, its cybersecurity services, the Cloud Program Management Office, and ITS’ several governmentwide contracts. He’ll also work with the ITS acquisition group, the 18F digital services team, the Office of Governmentwide Policy and FAS’ Assisted Acquisition Services to make sure they’re best using category management to meet customers’ needs.

Davie told FedScoop in February that GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service was shifting its organizational structure to better align with category management.

EPA’s data chief embraces ‘lean’ philosophy

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new chief data scientist is using a “lean” startup approach — a philosophy that emphasizes testing different ideas for a project and gathering feedback before creating a minimum viable product — to find better ways to use the reams of regulation, compliance and enforcement data the agency collects.

As a key part of that strategy, Robin Thottungal, who joined the EPA late last year, is working on a handful of small data projects with the agency’s offices to test each organization’s readiness to use data, while examining its existing technical infrastructure and staff.

He hopes that, through his work, EPA regulators and other officials will get better at finding patterns in the information they collect and more quickly take action.

“We have pockets of people who are already doing things to make it proactive,” he told FedScoop. “We want to make sure this is part of the DNA of EPA.”

For one project, Thottungal is working with the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management to build a platform to help regulators better monitor sensors at sites on the federal Superfund list, which comprises some of the most contaminated areas of the country.

“Their challenge is they are monitoring these sites using real-time sensors,” he said. “Now, what we are thinking about is: What would it look like in the 21st century when they have more real-time sensors and they can create large data sets? What kind of technology change do we need to bring in to support that kind of a system?”

The team has already developed the technical infrastructure for the project, but they’re working out some final details, Thottungal said. They hope to launch a pilot by the end of the year.

As part of his strategy, Thottungal is also developing what he calls a “community of practice” to bring together people who are using data in the agency. So far, he’s brought in 200 people from EPA offices across the country to meet and exchange information on best practices.

“We use this as a platform for other parts of the agency to talk about the space in which they were more proactive using analytical methods,” he said.

Thottungal’s work is part of an overarching effort within the EPA to rethink how the agency uses technology. Since Chief Information Officer Ann Dunkin has taken the helm of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Information last year, she’s led what she calls a “digital transformation” — focusing on implementing the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act and helping stand up a more modern way for her agency to communicate with state regulators. She and her team also have been working to redesign the IT office while moving toward using open source technology and innovative development strategies.

In the process, she brought in the agency’s Chief Technology Officer Greg Godbout, the former executive director for the General Services Administration’s tiger team 18F, who similarly has been advocating for agencies to embrace the lean movement.

Dunkin told FedScoop Thottungal is trying to find a way to help the agency better use its “incredible wealth of data” to better accomplish its missions.

“We have all this regulatory data, we have all this sensor data, and his job is to help us use that data to be more effective — better regulators, better protect the environment, reduce burden,” Dunkin said. “So, he’s working across the agency to build a strategy that really brings all our data together.”

Agencies across government have been bringing in experts to find ways to better use their data. Thottungal came to EPA in September. And in November, the Commerce Department announced it hired its first chief data scientist. The White House also has its own chief data scientist as well — DJ Patil, who was brought on last year. Thottungal said he’s met with Patil and discussed sustaining data science in the government, building a talented workforce and improving IT acquisition strategies.

Overall, Thottungal said he hopes Patil thinks of EPA as a testbed for data science across the government.

“If you want to think about the relationship I’m trying to be build with DJ, it’s ‘How can the lessons that I’m learning here at EPA as a chief data scientist can be used by him to create these that would affect other agencies?’” he said.

Contact the reporter on this story via email Whitney.Wyckoff@fedscoop.com, or follow her on Twitter @whitneywyckoff. Sign up for all the federal IT news you need in your inbox every morning at 6:00 here: fdscp.com/sign-me-on.