How OPRAmachine Works

The following presentation shows how OPRAmachine works and explains some of the basic concepts about the site and its operations.

How OPRAmachine Works

OPRAmachine is a statewide platform that is helping to make New Jersey government more transparent using the Open Public Records Act. - Send requests to state & local government - Track response time & publish responsive documents


Send Your Request

  • Draft request and pick which public authority you want to send it to
  • Our software delivers requests to the email addresses of government agency’s records custodian
  • OPRAmachine also takes care of tracking the timeline of the government’s response

Receiving Documents

  • OPRAmachine parses emails received from public authorities and notifies you when they respond.
  • Our servers take care of hosting and storing both the documents or denials provided by government agencies as well as a paper trail of all correspondence regarding the public records request. ___

Creating Government Transparency

  • Documents that one requester received are automatically shared with the entire public through our website.
  • Search engines like Google & Bing index the PDF files hosted on OPRAmachine, allowing internet users to have access to higher quality information about state and local governments and the collective decisions that they make.

Conclusion

  • OPRAmachine is a tool that helps you get answers from the government and share those answers with everyone else.
  • You can use the service to request public records from the government, or you can just search our public database of requests to follow requests currently in progress or view documents that other people have obtained. ___