This paper gives a brief discussion on the proposed laws published by the Federal Register online data base. My focus will be based on the Department of Education’s Proposed Information Collection Requests dated 1st, July, 2011. It was urging the general public, the local authorities and the state and federal governments to come up by the 30th day of August to bring their views on the proposed information collection procedures for the department.
In this publication, the department, through the Director,
Information Collection Clearance Division, Privacy, Information and Records Management Services, Office of Management officially launched the invitation to address the issues of access the information collection burden on the public and its impacts on the live of the Americans. The data collected would be used to make the necessary adjustments that would help the department in minimizing the costs of operation, improving the quality of its services and easily avail information to the people (Robert V. H., 2001). This will only be realized after making fundamental changes in the slightly out fashioned Annual Progress Report for the Access to TeleworkProgram under the Rehabilitation Act of1973.
In my response to this invitation, I would like to begin by commending the department for recognizing the important contribution of the civil society. In deed, this is a fulfillment of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. I can suggest that the timing for the release of such an important data should be changed. I think it is quite a waste of time to consume a total of 209 hours on this kind of project. Instead, the stakeholders should be conscious about time by reducing it to less than 150 hours. This will create room for more consultations, research and analysis.
In addition, I could suggest to the department to incorporate the use of modern trends of communication and storage of data. They should shift from the traditional trends of data collection and usage to the current Information Technology (Allen, T. & M. S. Morton, 2004). This will help the department in gathering, mining, analyzing, interpreting and storing the information. I think if this is done, the current burden associated with it will be ultimately eliminated.
Another suggestion I could give in regarding this scenario, is to improve the clarity and utility of the collected data. It is my considered opinion to say that the only way through which the limitations in the annual utility information can be resolved is remove the unnecessary sections from the Management Information System. So, when making decisions, it should be in the mind of the decision making organs to check on this. It will further boost their services by helping to minimize some of the said burdens.
Eventually, I would like to suggest that the department of education should consider special cases in the community. It should be their responsibility to ensure that they incorporate special categories of people including the physically impaired. This should be in line with the Telework Programs that is currently serving only 19 states. Provisions should be set to allow for the creation of incentives. If such groups are empowered, they will also be able to benefit from such information systems. Hence, they should be offered loans to purchase the necessities like computers.
References
Allen, T. & M. S. Morton (eds.) 2004). Information Technology and the Corporation of the 1990s. New York: Oxford University Press.
Robert, V. H. (2001). Cabinetmakers: Story of the Three-Year Battle to Establish the U.S.
Department of Education. New York.
