Earl Devaney, chairman of the federal government’s Recovery Act Transparency & Accountability Board, made a plea again this week for public assistance and advice on visualizing and tracking the funds doled out through the Stimulus Packages.  It’s a huge problem, and already there are debates if the government should even attempt visualization, or simply operate as a data portal for 3rd parties to visualize.

There’s a big opportunity for IT vendors to participate in the creation of the $84 million Web site, as well as creative, thoughtful, and technically minded citizens. And Recovery.gov really does need good input. For starters, 29 federal agencies are being asked to report in RSS or Atom data-feed format, beginning in July, the details of all contracts and grants they award using funds from the $787 billion stimulus package President Obama signed in February, down to the subrecipient level.

via Government Seeks IT Help To Track Stimulus Funds — Government IT — InformationWeek.