This minitrack focuses on the interactions between citizens and governments. As e-Government becomes more ubiquitous, many questions arise about what it means to develop and maintain an open and transparent government, engage in participatory government, encourage governance through transparency initiatives, support co-design of open and collaborative government, allow data (“Big Data”) release and use for policy- and decision-making, develop open data and open-data applications, and study how governments/governmental institutions might be influenced through openness and transparency efforts. This minitrack includes research on and studies of involvement of the public in the development, use, and evaluation of e-Government and participatory government dynamics, initiatives, and systems, including research that develops and explores open and transparent government frameworks, theories, evaluation, practice.

Open government is an approach which purposefully emphasizes and re-invigorates the basic principle of a “government of the people, for the people, and by the people.” Through information technology, committed administrative leadership, international initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership, and policies, countries around the world have now entered an era of unprecedented transparency of government operations and decision-making intended to lead to more responsibility, accountability, collaborative and participatory government, and integrity of public officials. Additionally, involvement of citizens in the iterative design and evaluation of e-Government systems leads to more effective digital tools for civic engagement and participation in the long run.

We welcome theoretical papers as well as quantitative and qualitative studies on the topics. Good case studies will also be accepted with strong implications for theory and practice.

Topics and research areas include, but are not limited to

1. -Theories, quantitative and qualitative studies on open government
   

2. -Open/transparent government initiatives around the world
   

3. -Open data in government and applications built on open data
   

4. -Technologies enabling/inhibiting open/transparent government
   

5. -Collaborative design and participation by citizens
   

6. -E-Citizen, e-Democracy and e-Participation
   

7. -Participation and deliberation
   

8. -Freedom of information and transparency
   

9. -Studies of citizens and democratic processes in social media and/or virtual worlds
   

10. -Gov 2.0 and beyond
    

11. -Impact on society, communities, companies and government
    

12. -Good practices and pitfalls in open government, public engagement, collaboration
    

13. -Technology-based approaches to making government information available
    

14. -Studies of the universal access requirements of e-Government
    

15. -Impact of policy on transparency and openness
    

16. -Methods, practices, and approaches to assess the success of open government efforts
    

17. -Privacy, security, and the right to know
    

More co-chair information

Scott P. Robertson, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he is also the founder and director of HICHI, the Hawaii Computer-Human Interaction Lab. He teaches and conducts research in the area of Human-Computer Interaction, specifically social networking and digital government. Scott earned his PhD from Yale University (1983), an M.A. in Psychology/Cognitive Science from California State University, Fullerton (1979), and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Irvine (1976).

John Carlo Bertot, PhD/Syracuse, iis Professor at the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies. He also serves as Co-Director of the Information Policy & Access Center. His research interests center on Information and telecommunications policy; e-Government; planning and evaluating library services, with an emphasis on networked services; public library use of and involvement with the Internet. He is also the editor-in-chief for Library Quarterly and Government Information Quarterly.

Mitch Cochran is the Information Systems Manager for the City of Monrovia, California.  His research interests are governance, operations and e-Government.  He has been active in the Municipal Information Systems Association of California (MISAC), working on statewide audits and education programs.  He earned a Masters in Homeland Security from Penn State (2008) and in Administration from UC Riverside (1984) along with a B.S. in Statistics from UC Riverside (1982).