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Obama orders streamlining of federal websites
Obama orders streamlining of federal websites, By Joseph Marks, nextgov (04/27/2011)
President Obama issued an executive order on Wednesday tasking federal agencies with creating new technology-based plans to improve their customer service within six months. The plan is also aimed at streamlining the clutter of more than 20,000 federal websites...Executive Order--Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary (April 27, 2011).
Within 180 days of the date of this order, each agency shall develop, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a Customer Service Plan (plan) to address how the agency will provide services in a manner that seeks to streamline service delivery and improve the experience of its customers.Continue reading
CRS report on ACTA
CRS Report Withheld By USTR Confirms That ACTA Language Is Quite Questionable, by Mike Masnick, TechDirt, April 26, 2011.
We're happy to announce that we've been able to get our hands on the -- until now -- secret Congressional Research Service analysis of ACTA.... [I]t shows that the language used by the USTR in ACTA has lots of weasel words that let them claim it doesn't impact US law, but the interpretations of the language could very much impact US law. "...The Committee concludes that Congress intended to retain control over this document and that it is not an agency record subject to FOIA.""Potential Implications For Federal Law Raised By The October 2010 Draft Of The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - ACTA" CRS Memorandum To Honorable Ron Wyden From Brian T. Yeh, Legislative Attorney, American Law Division, 7-5182 October 29, 2010 7-5700 Redacted. Continue reading
Research: Why not just google it?
A new research paper that evaluated the information literacy skills of first-year dental students reports:
Nearly half of students missed one or more question components that required finding an evidence-based citation. Analysis of the survey revealed a significantly higher percentage of students who provided incorrect responses reported using Google as their preferred online search method. In contrast, a significantly higher percentage of students who reported using PubMed were able to provide correct responses. Following a one-hour intervention by a health science librarian, virtually all students were able to find and retrieve evidence-based materials for subsequent coursework.Kingsley, Karl, Gillian Galbraith, Matthew Herring, Eva Stowers, Tanis Stewart, and Karla Kingsley, Why Not Just Google It? An Assessment of Information Literacy Skills in a Biomedical Science Curriculum., BMC Medical Education, 11 (2011), 17 doi:10.1186/1472-6920-11-17. Hat tip to InfoDocket! Continue reading
NARA Posts Documents on Guatemalan Syphilis Experiments
From UNREDACTED (Decades Later, NARA Posts Documents on Guatemalan Syphilis Experiments, by Kate Doyle, April 25, 2011):
Between 1946 and 1948, U.S. public health researchers infected hundreds of Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers and mentally ill patients with syphilis and gonorrhea, without their knowledge or consent, in order to test the effectiveness of penicillin. The experiments were carried out in Guatemala under the cloak of confidentiality, and the results were never published in the United States. But after a scholar discovered archives chronicling the program at the University of Pittsburgh and published her findings last year, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) took custody of the documents and on March 29 made them publicly available.From the NARA press release:
The National Archives at Atlanta announced that on March 29, 2011, it will release online the papers of Dr. John C. Cutler. Dr. Cutler, a former employee of the U.S. Public Health Service, 1942-1967, was involved in research on Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners, and mental health patients who were exposed to the syphilis bacteria. The collection is available online [http://www.archives.gov/research/health/cdc-cutler-records] and at the National Archives at Atlanta, located at 5780 Jonesboro Road, Morrow, Georgia, 30260.Continue reading
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