U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

Open Government Program 

Accomplishments in 2010–2011 

I. BACKGROUND 

On April 7, 2010, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published its Open Government 

Plan to serve as the roadmap for agency activities in support of President Obama’s 

Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, dated January 21, 2009, and the ensuing 

Directive issued by the Office of Management and Budget on December 8, 2009. Since then, 

the plan has served the agency well as a roadmap guiding our Open Government program to date. 

However, we believe the time is ripe to revisit the plan, as called for in the Open Government 

Directive, and build the roadmap for the next 2 years. As we look to the future of our Open 

Government program, it is worthwhile to review our accomplishments over the past 2 years. 

II. ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2010–2011 

A. 2010 Highlights 

In 2010, the NRC’s Open Government Program focused on “Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement” 

(our flagship initiative); publishing high-value datasets; and building a foundation for work 

to be done in 2011. This focus yielded the following accomplishments in 2010: 

• Implemented new subscription-based services to enable stakeholders to keep abreast 

of the most current agency news and activities. 

• Enhanced stakeholder involvement in public meetings by expanding the use of Web event 

and virtual meeting technologies. 

• Furthered collaboration within industry and Government workgroups by using 

Web conferencing technologies. 

• Exceeded target goals for publishing high-value agency datasets at data.gov in open formats 

that enable stakeholders to download, manipulate, and analyze the data. 

• Launched the NRC’s Open Government Web site (http://www.nrc.gov/publicinvolve/open.html) on February 4, 2010, as scheduled. Subsequently issued 

quarterly status reports of progress against our open government plan commitments, 

and posted a dashboard highlighting significant accomplishments and plan changes. 

• Enhanced the Facility Locator to provide detailed information for each operating 

nuclear power reactor. 

• Implemented significant improvements to the agency’s Web-based search capability. 

• Established the foundation for the introduction of social media technology to further 

citizen engagement. 
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B. 2011 Highlights 

In 2011, the NRC focused on building on the foundation established in 2010. This focus yielded 

the following additional accomplishments: 

• Introduced social media technology and made significant progress in our Social Media program: 

o Launched the NRC blog in January. The blog has proven especially useful 

in enabling quick public communications during and after events in both Japan 

and the United States: 

 On average, the blog has just under 500 views per day; immediately after 

the event at Fukushima, views peaked at just over 5,700 in a single day. 

 During the week of August 22, 2011, blog posts provided information 

on earthquake response and hurricane preparation at nuclear power plants. 

 Daily views of the blog peaked at more than 1,000 during the Missouri River 

flooding event. 

o Launched the NRC Twitter account in August. Within 2 days, the NRC had 400 followers, 

and many different organizations and individuals were “retweeting” our tweets, 

greatly expanding the agency’s reach. 

o Launched the NRC YouTube channel in September. The first video featured 

NRC employees talking about their experiences on 9/11, and its effects on their lives. 

Subsequent videos will consist of segments of some important Commission briefings, 

videos previously produced but not extensively distributed, and new content. 

• Continued publishing high-value datasets: 

o We formalized our process for identifying, prioritizing, and publishing datasets, 

including the option for stakeholders to receive email notifications when new datasets 

are published. 

o To foster use of NRC high-value datasets, we publicized their availability 

at the annual Regulatory Information Conference. 

o Through FY 2011, we’ve published 29 datasets — considerably more than 

the 17 identified in the agency’s Open Government Plan. 

o Data.gov selected our dataset of U.S. nuclear power plant inspection reports 

to be featured on the rotating pane of their home page. 

o We added a licensee event report application to data.gov, allowing searches 

for licensee event reports based on a variety of criteria. 

• Launched a significantly redesigned public Web site with greatly improved search capabilities: 

o The redesigned site features a modern look-and-feel. 

o New search capabilities allow site visitors to use a single search string to easily retrieve 

information from the NRC’s entire public website, as well as the extensive collection 

of more than 665,000 publicly available documents in the Agencywide Documents Access 

and Management System (ADAMS). 

o Since the redesign, the new site’s scores on content, look-and-feel, and transparency 

have continued to improve, as reported in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. 

• Expanded the agency’s Open Government Web site to serve as an “umbrella” for related 

initiatives and plans: 

o Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service

and the Customer Service Plan

o The CIO Council .Gov Reform Initiative and Web Improvement Plan

o Plain Writing at the NRC