While President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner continue to push ahead with negotiations over federal revenues and spending, federal workers have also been offering up ideas to curb government spending.
And the ideas of four federal employees are up for a public vote this week, the White House announced today. (The public has until noon, Dec. 21, to vote.) Keep reading →
A sizable majority of federal employees believe they have the skills to do their jobs and fulfill their agency missions, according to the 2012 “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” report released by the Partnership for Public Service.
Among 10 workplace categories that drive employee satisfaction working for government, employees government-wide gave the match between their skills and mission the highest rating, with a score of 77.3 on a scale of 100. This was a slight drop from 2011 when the score was 78.6.
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This is one in a series of reports on the 2012 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. For more news and insights on innovations at work in government, please sign up for the AOL Gov newsletter. For the quickest updates, like us on Facebook.
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In a report released Monday, the nonprofit Space Foundation made a number of recommendations for strengthening the focus, oversight and funding of NASA and the U.S. civil space program.
The foundation’s research, conducted over the last year, revealed NASA lacks focus after years shifting of priorities, frequent redirection and mixed signals from Congress and presidential administrations. The 70-page report, “Pioneering: Sustaining U.S. Leadership in Space,” details the agency’s challenges and how the U.S. can regain its leadership in space. Keep reading →
Mobile device management software is helping federal, state and local governments to keep track of employee handheld devices. But as agency programs grow in size, new challenges such as technology life cycle and migration are beginning to surface. To address these issues, organizations are taking a number of approaches designed to meet their specific needs.
NASA straddles the line between device and data management policies. Unlike defense and intelligence agencies, NASA is an “open organization” founded to share its data with the public, said Adrian Gardner, chief information officer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center at the Symantec Government Symposium. Keep reading →
Chevron has teamed up with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to bring space-age techniques to down-to-Earth energy exploration and production involving increasingly harsh environments. Keep reading →
A new narrative is emerging in government innovation and it goes something like this: Truly great leaps in innovation are almost never possible with monolithic, proprietary approaches to software development, and many small innovations, when taken together, often lead to large, game-changing paradigms.
That was the message delivered by both government and private sector IT professionals at the Red Hat Government Symposium on Oct. 23. The event, sponsored by Red Hat Inc. focused on the importance of transparency, open sharing, and collaboration to the success of the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative, as well as how open source software can help agencies accomplish their missions in a time of dwindling resources. Keep reading →
This is the second in a series of stories about innovation at the National Weather Service.
This storm season, National Hurricane Center scientists are using sophisticated simulation models, new-age aircraft and better communications tools to achieve finely honed forecasting. Keep reading →
A group of technology leaders came to the Capitol this week to make the case that the age of “big data” is not only upon us, but also represents a powerful and practical way for federal agencies to create substantially more value for the public – for relatively little incremental investment.
That comes as refreshing news compared to the relentless promises of big savings that accompanied the dawn of cloud computing, which has proven far trickier to implement. The difference is due in large measure to the fact that big data is really more of a phenomenon than a technology. Keep reading →
NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy launched a new public challenge contest Wednesday to generate novel approaches to using “big data” information sets from various U.S. government agencies.
Dr. Suzanne Iacono, senior science advisor for the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science directorate, made the announcement during an industry forum at the Capitol surrounding the release of a new report on big data in government. Keep reading →
This is one among a collection of videos and essays from women who contribute to NASA‘s mission. They are part of the agency’s efforts to create a collaborative and supportive community of women at the agency, inspire girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and to encourage openness and accountability at NASA.
I began my first NASA research project only a year after I started studying mechanical engineering. I was in my mid-twenties and an “older” college student. I had studied musical theatre and education after high school, but I kept dropping out of college and going to work. I worked a waitress for a few years, and then as a veterinary technician for another few years. I also rented rooms and booked tours at the Grand Canyon and managed a gas station. Keep reading →