2017 Compliance Report

I. Senior Agency Official for Plain Writing

Donna Garland, Acting Associate Administrator for Office of Strategic Communications

Names of Plain Language coordinators within the agency:
Katherine Spivey, Plain Language Launcher, katherine.spivey@gsa.gov and plainlanguage@gsa.gov

II. Explain what specific types of agency communications have you released by making them available in a format that is consistent with the Plain Writing guidelines.

• Press releases
• GSA blog
• Great Government through Technology blog
• GSA.gov webpages
• Making It Easier to use IT Schedule 70
• Making It Easier: Multiple Award Schedules

III. Inform agency staff of Plain Writing Act’s requirements

• Information on the Act is posted on InSite, the agency intranet, with shortcut.
• Plain Language Group on Salesforce Chatter (formed 1/3/2012) over 60 members.
• article on ITC Connect
• article on GSA InSite

IV. Agency provided the following training sessions:

• Acquisition Gateway content managers - 6 people
• Chief Information Officer's Communications team - 5 people
• IT Schedule 70 - 18 people
• ITC Portfolio Outreach Communications - 8 people
• Office of the Inspector General - 92 people attended 3 in-person training sessions; 120 people watched session recordings
• Office of Strategic Communications - 15 people
• 337 new hires took the online course at GSA Online University

Office Hours

• 11/16/17
• 12/21/17

Briefings

• APG
• Challenge.gov - Crowdsourcing Competitions
• Defense Threat Reduction Agency
• Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC)
• Veterans Health Administration (VA)
• Journalism class at Georgetown University
• Office of Minority Health (HHS)
• Senior Officers Advisory Roundtable (SOAR) 
• State Department UX Exponential conference
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin (SAMHSA)

V. Ongoing compliance/ sustaining change

Name of agency contact for compliance issues: Katherine Spivey

VI. Agency’s plain writing website

Website address: www.gsa.gov/plainlanguage

VII. Customer Satisfaction Evaluation after Experiencing Plain Writing Communications

In July 2011, we created and posted an email address, plainlanguage@gsa.gov, published on our plain language page, www.gsa.gov/plainlanguage. In 2017, no one contacted us asking to clarify any GSA.gov page. We did get spam.