We represent the Department of Health and Human Services Innovation Council and have been using a variety of web based public input platforms. The toolkit has provided a very useful means to think about the design of crowdsourcing, and community input mechanisms on a wide array of the Department's activities. Given the diverse array of audiences, types of public solicitations that are made, and the various levels of experience with such mechanisms, the Toolkit has provided ample opportunity to consider others experiences, and better design our tools.

Gregory Downing, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.hhs.gov/open

To date, I've used PCAT to sort through the comments we received on two priority rulemakings. PCAT's ability to group similar comments has helped me identify mass mail campaigns and isolate substantive, unique comments quickly and efficiently.

As a rulewriter, I could see a clear use for PCAT for those times when we receive numerous comments on a rule and are under a tight deadline to prepare a comment analysis.

Benjamin J. Kaczmarksi, US Department of Agriculture
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/

We started using PCAT to sort and review more than 56,000 public comments on an issue. We decided to try PCAT instead of contracting out, as we would have done otherwise. This was our first time using this system, which the developer tailored to our needs. We were quite pleased with the prompt technical assistance and the exceptional responses to our requests for modifications. [Texifter] had "can do" answers to everything we needed. The system worked for us and we plan to use it system on our next issue.

Susan Jewell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
http://www.fws.gov/

... To accurately review and incorporate the publicly-provided information in our final determination, we worked with researchers in the Qualitative Data Analysis Program (QDAP) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Pittsburgh - developers of the Public Comment Analysis Toolkit (PCAT)analytical software. The PCAT (sic) enhanced our ability to review and consider large numbers of comments, including large numbers of similar comments on our proposed listing, allowing us to identify similar comments as well as individual ideas, data, recommendations, or suggestions on the proposed listing...

Art Roybal, Sr. Fish & Wildlife Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
http://www.fws.gov/