TechEDge | California Community Colleges

U.S. DOE Launches Open Innovation Portal

Last Updated on Thursday, 12 August 2010 Written by Jen Gednalske Thursday, 04 March 2010

On February 15, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced the launch of the Ed.gov Open Innovation Portal (the Portal).

The Portal, is an online educational community where individuals can connect, collaborate and exchange ideas with colleagues and potential funders. 

The Portal is designed to incorporate Web 2.0 features common to popular Web sites such as Facebook, Craigslist and Amazon. Members build a profile featuring a biography, interests and educational affiliation. Members may also add multiple links to point the community to their Web sites and blogs.

 The Portal applys “badges” that identify users as members, innovators or staff. Members may also designate themselves as a student, teacher, administrator or funder. The badges help identify users’ roles, sort through the community and filter connections. Connections can also be filtered by network and state.

The forum for submitting ideas may be the main substance of the Portal. After filling out a form describing an idea or project, a member can submit the idea for community collaboration and review. Supporting materials such as Web links and video can be included. After submitting an idea, a member becomes designated as an “innovator.”

The DOE also included a “Challenges” section. In this section the DOE posts issues to the community to generate ideas, conversation and, ideally, solutions. “Sponsored Challenges” may also be hosted by foundations, non-profit organizations, businesses or individuals. The sponsor develops and sets the criteria and awards for these competitions.

A "Classifieds" section allows members to post a Craigslist-type ad to request or offer resources. Replying members can choose to make their responses public or private.

The community can rate ideas, make comments and suggestions, pose questions and offer funding and advice. Responding to posts earns points that increase member “reputation” and can be transferred to other members as a sign of appreciation.

The "Community" area includes a member leaderboard, where members can view the rank and reputation of other members and sort members into categories for networking. A member must send a networking request in order to add other members. Members also have the options of communicating through a direct message or by the “Tip Your Hat” feature—a professional version of a Facebook “poke.”

Members converse through an internal message system or by responding to and reviewing posted ideas, similar to the discussion boards at Amazon. Currently, Twitter, chat or blog features are not options available for communication. However, other features appear to be in the works, such as the ability to view a feed of the recent activities of your network. The Portal is taking feedback and perhaps more options will be added.

The Open Innovation Portal owes its creation to two executive memorandums. President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government as his first executive act. The memorandum calls for a "more transparent, participatory and collaborative government."

In December 2009, the White House issued an Open Government Directive, stating “The three principles of transparency, participation and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government.” This included a mandate “to create an unprecedented and sustained level of openness and accountability.” The directive also required that “each agency shall create an Open Government Web page ... to serve as the gateway for agency activities related to the Open Government Directive.”

The California Community Colleges have a long history of focus on collaboration. The recent push for collaboration and program integration with California K-12 and four-year universities to ease economic woes, may be exactly the kind of atmosphere the DOE is striving to create.This tool could become an important means of future communication on an national an international level and give a voice to anyone with an idea or a love of education.

The Portal is a partnership between the DOE and Spencer Trask Collaborative Innovations (STCI) and their member firm, VenCorps.org.

STCI embraces global, interconnected communities of intelligent, imaginative and innovative people. Its member firms are designed to bring the collaborative innovation revolution to fruition at the world’s leading corporations, and government organizations.

VenCorps.org applies open innovation to social entrepreneurship and policy innovation. Governments, non-profits and foundations use the VenCorps approach and technology to improve civic engagement, foster innovation and develop scalable solutions to social issues. <>

For more information please visit: http://www.ed.gov/blog/2010/02/new-open-innovation-portal-awaits-ideas/.

To join the Ed.gov Open Innovation Portal, visit: https://innovation.ed.gov/my-portal/.

The Department of Education Web site is located at http://www.ed.gov/.

Jen Gednalske is a CCC Technology Center and California Virtual Campus Project Manager
and a TechEDge Editor.