Recovery.gov asks citizen developers for ways to improve site

The contractors that are refurbishing Recovery.gov have reached out to citizen developers for advice on how to make raw data available on the site, which the Obama administration plans to relaunch on Sept. 28. The official stimulus-monitoring site is intended to show the public the results of the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending that Congress authorized in February to stimulate the economy, including the number of jobs created, the amount of money spent and timelines for projects down to the neighborhood level. But when the government published requirements for Recovery.gov this summer, some open government advocates voiced concerns that the spending data on the site would not be easily accessible to other sites. After the criticism, companies designing the site asked the public to exchange ideas for data feeds and downloads with them online.