NASA

CHIEF FOIA OFFICER REPORT

JANUARY 2018
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

2018 Chief FOIA Officer Report

NASA Chief FOIA Officer

Jen Rae Wang

Associate Administrator 

 for Communications

Section 1: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness

The guiding principle underlying DOJ’s FOIA Guidelines is the presumption of openness.

Please answer the following questions in order to describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that 

the presumption of openness is being applied to all decisions involving the FOIA. You may also include 

any additional information that illustrates how your agency is working to apply the presumption of 

openness.

A. FOIA Training

1. Did your FOIA professionals or the personnel at your agency who have FOIA responsibilities attend any 

substantive FOIA training or conference during the reporting period such as that provided by the 

Department of Justice?

ANSWER: YES

2. If yes, please provide a brief description of the type of training attended or conducted and the topics 

covered.

ANSWER: FOIA Staff attend a monthly VITS for training. In June, FOIA staff attending training 

in Washington, DC. Advanced FOIA training was covered, including recent changes in the law, 

case-law, fees, and search issues.

3. Provide an estimate of the percentage of your FOIA professionals and staff with FOIA responsibilities 

who attended substantive FOIA training during this reporting period.

ANSWER: 100%

4. OIP has directed agencies to “take steps to ensure that all of their FOIA professionals attend 

substantive FOIA training at least once throughout the year.” If your response to the previous question is 

that less than 80% of your FOIA professionals attended training, please explain your agency’s plan to 
ensure that all FOIA professionals receive or attend substantive FOIA training during the next reporting 

year.

B. Outreach

5. Did your FOIA professionals engage in any outreach or dialogue with the requester community or open 

government groups regarding your administration of the FOIA?

ANSWER: Yes. When appropriate, FOIA staff contact the requester/organization and explain 

the agency search capabilities as well as the requirement to maintain records.

C. Other Initiatives

6. Describe any efforts your agency has undertaken to inform non-FOIA professionals of their obligations 

under the FOIA.

ANSWER: FOIA Staff are providing overview training to other staff throughout the Agency.

7. If there are any other initiatives undertaken by your agency to ensure that the presumption of 

openness is being applied, please describe them here.

ANSWER: NASA continues to have one of the top rated websites in the Federal Government due 

to the frequent updating of information that is of interest to the public. NASA also has multiple 

avenues for the public to acquire information of interest, which has helped to reduce the need to 

submit a FOIA request to the Agency.

Section II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency Has an Effective System in Place for 

Responding to Requests

DOJ’s FOIA Guidelines emphasize that “[a]pplication of the proper disclosure standard is only one part of 

ensuring transparency. Open government requires not just a presumption of disclosure, but also an 

effective system for responding to FOIA requests.” It is essential that agencies effectively manage their 

FOIA program.

Please answer the following questions to describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that the 

management of your FOIA program is effective and efficient. You should also include any additional 

information that that describes your agency's efforts in this area.

1. For Fiscal Year 2017, what was the average number of days your agency reported for adjudicating 

requests for expedited processing? Please see Section VIII.A. of your agency's Fiscal Year 2017 

Annual FOIA Report.

ANSWER: 6.16
2. If your agency's average number of days to adjudicate requests for expedited processing was above ten 

calendar days, please describe the steps your agency will take to ensure that requests for expedited 

processing are adjudicated within ten calendar days or less.

3. During the reporting period, did your agency conduct a self-assessment of its FOIA program? If so, 

please describe the methods used, such as reviewing Annual Report data, using active workflows and 

track management, reviewing and updating processing procedures, etc.

ANSWER: Yes. NASA began consolidating the program to a central management to streamline business 

practices and ensure consistency. Effective in FY18, the FOIA Officers located at NASA Centers are 

matrixed to the Principal Agency FOIA Officer in Washington, DC.

4. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 requires additional notification to requesters about the services 

provided by the agency’s FOIA Public Liaison. Please provide an estimate of the number of times 

requesters sought assistance from your agency’s FOIA Public Liaison during FY 2017 (please provide a 

total number or an estimate of the number).

ANSWER: Eight

5. Optional Survey Question: If possible, please provide an estimate of the average number of pages that 

your agency processes for each request. You may provide estimates for each track.

6. If there are any other steps your agency has undertaken to ensure that your FOIA system operates 

efficiently and effectively, such as improving search processes, eliminating redundancy, etc., please 

describe them here.

ANSWER: FOIA Officers are providing assistance to each other in processing cases to reduce the 

increasing backlog. NASA received 230 more requests in FY17 than FY16; a 27% increase. However, in 

FY17 two FOIA Officers retired (with a combined 37 years of FOIA experience). This left the Agency with 

5 full-time FOIA staff and 2 part-time. In order to ensure continuity, the Agency is centralizing the 

program and FOIA Officers are now either located at Headquarters or matrixed to Headquarters. 

Additionally, NASA has approved a full-time staffing level of seven FOIA Officers and will no longer backfill FOIA positions at Center locations. This will ensure continuity in the program.

Section III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosures

The Department of Justice has long focused on the need for agencies to work proactively to post 

information online without waiting for individual requests to be received.

Please answer the following questions to describe the steps your agency has taken to increase the amount 

of material that is available on your agency websites. In addition to the questions below, you should also 
describe any additional steps taken by your agency to make and improve proactive disclosures of 

information.

1. Provide examples of material that your agency has proactively disclosed during the past reporting year, 

including links to the posted material

ANSWER: Documents related to the Presidential transition as well as travel information. Other 

program offices post documents related to missions on their websites. The Office of the 

Inspector General posts reviews, reports, report announcements.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/FOIA/err.htm

2. Did your agency use any means to publicize or highlight important proactive disclosures for public 

awareness? If yes, please describe these efforts.

ANSWER: Yes. Through the use of social media. Our program offices regularly post documents 

related to mission updates, launches, etc., and this information is further publicized through 

tweets, program-sponsored events. The Public Inquiries Office revises their website to provide 

direct links to material of interest to the public. For example the solar eclipse; the Cassini 

Spacecraft’s historic exploration; the JFK Centennial; Hidden Figures. 

3. Beyond posting new material, is your agency taking steps to make the posted information more useful 

to the public, especially to the community of individuals who regularly access your agency’s website?

ANSWER: Yes. 

4. If yes, please provide examples of such improvements. 

ANSWER: The links and information are regularly updated to provide the most current information of 

interest to the public. Public Affairs Officers also provide additional information/links if they believe 

something may become of interest to the public.

5. If there are any other steps your agency has taken to improve proactive disclosures, please describe 

them here. For example, has your agency engaged requesters in determining how and what to post? Has 

your agency used web analytics to inform your proactive disclosures?

ANSWER: NASA uses webmetrics to determine what the public is seeking and then works with 

the program offices to ensure information is posted about these topics.

Section IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology
A key component of FOIA administration is using technology to make information more accessible. In 

addition to using the internet to make proactive disclosures, agencies should also be exploring ways to 

utilize technology in responding to requests.

Please answer the following questions to describe how your agency is utilizing technology to improve its 

FOIA administration and the public's access to information. You should also include any additional 

information that that describes your agency's efforts in this area.

1. Has your agency identified any best practices to leverage technology to facilitate overall FOIA efficiency, 

such as improving record search capabilities, utilizing document sharing platforms for consultations and 

referrals, or employing software that can sort and de-duplicate documents? If yes please describe the best 

practices, the types of technology used and the impact on your agency’s processing. 

ANSWER: Yes. FOIA staff use large file transfer to speed up consultations and ensure documents are 

properly processed. NASA is looking into de-duplication software.

2. Did your agency successfully post all four quarterly reports for Fiscal Year 2017?

ANSWER: Yes

3. If your agency did not successfully post all quarterly reports, with information appearing on FOIA.gov, 

please explain why and provide your agency’s plan for ensuring that such reporting is successful in Fiscal 

Year 2018.

4. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 requires all agencies to post the raw statistical data used to 

compile their Annual FOIA Reports. Please provide the link to this posting for your agency’s Fiscal Year 

2016 Annual FOIA Report and, if available, for your agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 Annual FOIA Report. 

ANSWER: 2016 and 2017 raw data can be accessed at the following link: 

https://www.nasa.gov/FOIA/report.html

5. If there are any other steps your agency has taken to improve use of technology in FOIA, please 

describe them here.

Section V: Steps Taken to Improve Timeliness in Responding to Requests and Reducing 

Backlogs

The Department of Justice has emphasized the importance of improving timeliness in responding to 

requests. This section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report addresses both time limits and backlog 

reduction. Backlog reduction is measured both in terms of numbers of backlogged requests or appeals 

and by looking at whether agencies closed their ten oldest requests, appeals, and consultations.
For the figures required in this Section, please use the numbers contained in the specified sections of your 

agency’s 2017 Annual FOIA Report and, when applicable, your agency’s 2016 Annual FOIA Report.

A. Simple Track

Section VII.A of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled "FOIA Requests – Response Time for All 

Processed Requests," includes figures that show your agency's average response times for processed 

requests. For agencies utilizing a multi-track system to process requests, there is a category for "simple" 

requests, which are those requests that are placed in the agency’s fastest (non-expedited) track, based on 

the low volume and/or simplicity of the records requested.

1. Does your agency utilize a separate track for simple requests?

ANSWER: Yes

2. If so, for your agency overall in Fiscal Year 2017, was the average number of days to process simple 

requests twenty working days or fewer?

ANSWER: 5.73%

3. Please provide the percentage of requests processed by your agency in Fiscal Year 2017 that were placed 

in your simple track.

ANSWER: 41%

4. If your agency does not track simple requests separately, was the average number of days to process all 

non-expedited requests twenty working days or fewer?

B. Backlogs

Section XII.A of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled "Backlogs of FOIA Requests and 

Administrative Appeals" shows the numbers of any backlogged requests or appeals from the fiscal year. 

You should refer to these numbers from your Annual FOIA Reports for both Fiscal Year 2016 and Fiscal 

Year 2017 when completing this section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

BACKLOGGED REQUESTS

5. If your agency had a backlog of requests at the close of Fiscal Year 2017, did that backlog decrease as 

compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2016?

ANSWER: The backlog increased

6. If not, explain why and describe the causes that contributed to your agency not being able to reduce its 

backlog. When doing so, please also indicate if any of the following were contributing factors:
• An increase in the number of incoming requests.

• A loss of staff.

• An increase in the complexity of the requests received. If possible, please provide 

examples or briefly describe the types of complex requests contributing to your backlog 

increase.

• Any other reasons – please briefly describe or provide examples when possible.

ANSWER: The backlog increased due to a loss of FOIA personnel; a significant increase (27%) of 

incoming requests; an increase in the complexity of requests, as well an increase in the number of 

requests associated with contracts, i.e., all modifications.

7. If you had a request backlog please report the percentage of requests that make up the backlog out of 

the total number of requests received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2017.

ANSWER: .01080

BACKLOGGED APPEALS

8. If your agency had a backlog of appeals at the close of Fiscal Year 2017, did that backlog decrease as 

compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2016?

ANSWER: NASA did not have a backlog of appeals.

9. If not, explain why and describe the causes that contributed to your agency not being able to reduce its 

backlog. When doing so, please also indicate if any of the following were contributing factors:

• An increase in the number of incoming appeals.

• A loss of staff.

• An increase in the complexity of the requests received. If possible, please provide examples or 

briefly describe the types of complex requests contributing to your backlog increase.

• Any other reasons – please briefly describe or provide examples when possible.

10. If you had an appeal backlog please report the percentage of appeals that make up the backlog out of 

the total number of appeals received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2017. If your agency did not receive any 

appeals in Fiscal Year 2017 and/or has no appeal backlog, please answer with "N/A."

ANSWER: N/A

C. Backlog Reduction Plans
11. In the 2017 guidelines for Chief FOIA Officer Reports, any agency with a backlog of over 1000 requests 

in Fiscal Year 2016 was asked to provide a plan for achieving backlog reduction in the year ahead. Did 

your agency implement a backlog reduction plan last year? If so, describe your agency’s efforts in 

implementing this plan and note if your agency was able to achieve backlog reduction in Fiscal Year 

2017?

ANSWER: N/A

12. If your agency had a backlog of more than 1,000 requests in Fiscal Year 2017, what is your agency’s 

plan to reduce this backlog during Fiscal Year 2018?

D. Status of Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations

Section VII.E, entitled "Pending Requests – Ten Oldest Pending Requests," Section VI.C.(5), entitled "Ten 

Oldest Pending Administrative Appeals," and Section XII.C., entitled "Consultations on FOIA Requests –

Ten Oldest Consultations Received from Other Agencies and Pending at Your Agency," show the ten 

oldest pending requests, appeals, and consultations. You should refer to these numbers from your Annual 

FOIA Reports for both Fiscal Year 2016 and Fiscal Year 2017 when completing this section of your Chief 

FOIA Officer Report.

TEN OLDEST REQUESTS

13. In Fiscal Year 2017, did your agency close the ten oldest requests that were reported pending in your 

Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report?

ANSWER: Yes

14. If no, please provide the number of these requests your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal 

year, as listed in Section VII.E of your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten total 

oldest requests to close, please indicate that.

15. Of the requests your agency was able to close from your ten oldest, please indicate how many of these 

were closed because the request was withdrawn by the requester. If any were closed because the request 

was withdrawn, did you provide any interim responses prior to the withdrawal?

ANSWER: All pending requests were processed.

TEN OLDEST APPEALS

16. In Fiscal Year 2017, did your agency close the ten oldest appeals that were reported pending in your 

Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report?

ANSWER: Yes
17. If no, please provide the number of these appeals your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal 

year, as listed in Section VII.C.(5) of your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten 

total oldest appeals to close, please indicate that.

TEN OLDEST CONSULTATIONS

18. In Fiscal Year 2017, did your agency close the ten oldest consultations that were reported pending in 

your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report?

ANSWER: Yes

19. If no, please provide the number of these consultations your agency was able to close by the end of the 

fiscal year, as listed in Section XII.C. of your Fiscal Year 2016 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than 

ten total oldest consultations to close, please indicate that.

E. Additional Information on Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations & Plans

20. Briefly explain any obstacles your agency faced in closing its ten oldest requests, appeals, and 

consultations from Fiscal Year 2017. 

ANSWER: N/A

21. If your agency was unable to close any of its ten oldest requests because you were waiting to hear back 

from other agencies on consultations you sent, please provide the date the request was initially received 

by your agency, the date when your agency sent the consultation, and the date when you last contacted the 

agency where the consultation was pending.

ANSWER: N/A

22. If your agency did not close its ten oldest pending requests, appeals, or consultations, please provide a 

plan describing how your agency intends to close those “ten oldest” requests, appeals, and consultations 

during Fiscal Year 2017.

ANSWER: N/A

F. Success Stories

Out of all the activities undertaken by your agency since March 2017 to increase transparency and 

improve FOIA administration, please briefly describe here at least one success story that you would like to 

highlight as emblematic of your agency’s efforts. The success story can come from any one of the five key 

areas. As noted above, OIP will highlight these agency success stories during Sunshine Week. To 

facilitate this process, all agencies should use bullets to describe their success story and limit their text to 
a half page. The success story is designed to be a quick summary of key achievements. A complete 

description of all your efforts will be contained in the body of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

NASA has achieved a great deal of success this year in the FOIA program. Although our backlog increased 

to 11, overall the business processes have improved significantly with the centralization of the program at 

Headquarters.

- NASA recognized the need to consolidate FOIA business processes in order to achieve 

continual success in the program

- FOIA Officers are now either located in Headquarters or are matrixed to Headquarters

- Oversight of business processes are easier to maintain

- Due to the limitations of staffing, FOIA Officers are better able to provide back-up as 

necessary to other FOIA Officers

- FOIA positions will no longer be part-time or considered an ‘and other duty’ to fulfill 

obligations

- FOIA points of contact are appointed at each Center within the Office of 

Communications to assist FOIA Officers in obtaining documents responsive to requests.