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Alex Sadleir 1 #GovHack Toolkit
Maxious 2 Welcome to the GovHack toolkit. This page provides all the information you need to prepare hackfest entries.
Alex Sadleir 3 These tools can be used to make entries like: mobile apps, web apps, data visualisations/infographics.
4 This toolkit is open source, licenced cc-by and improvements are encouraged ...
5
Maxious 6 # How to register and submit your entry
Maxious 7 ## Registering your team
Alex Sadleir 8 Coming Soon: how to use the website "Hacker Space" to register and find teams.
9
Maxious 10 ## Preparing your submission
Alex Sadleir 11
Maxious 12 You should record a 3 minute speech and mix images/text to accompany.
Maxious 13 http://www.screenr.com/ and other screencasting tools allow you to demo apps.
Maxious 14 To mix together clips, you can use youtube video editor http://www.youtube.com/editor or local software like http://www.videolan.org/vlmc/ or http://www.lwks.com/
Maxious 15
Maxious 16 You also need to submit your "source material". For an application this may be source code, for another work it might be your notes or prototypes.
Maxious 17 The key thing here is that your source material demonstrates to the judges that some of the end result was your own work and that it is possible for another person to replicate that work.
Maxious 18
Maxious 19
20 # General References {#general-data-hacking-and-programming-references}
21
Maxious 22 ## Who can be a hack day participant
Maxious 23 There are many roles you can play; coder, designer UX/graphics.
24
maxious 25 ## The basics of being a data scientist
Maxious 26
Maxious 27 * Have a hypothesis - even if you're making a tool/api that helps people with their questions too, remember what the objective of that is.
28 * Find the people and tools you need to prove/show/find. This rest of this page will help with the latter.
Maxious 29 * Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out?
Alex Sadleir 30 Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
Maxious 31
32 [![](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f-300x199.gif "Data Journalism Diagram")](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f.gif)</dt>
maxious 33 Illustration from Data Journalism Handbook, CC BY-SA 3.0</dd>
Maxious 34
35 The best high level reference is the 'Understanding Data' and 'Delivering Data' chapters of the Data Journalism Handbook which is available online for free at
36 [datajournalismhandbook.org](http://datajournalismhandbook.org/)
37
38 You can learn the technical skills from scratch in Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics by Nathan Yau or for more advanced
39 practical advice check out Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K. Janert
40 For further reading in this space
41 [http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/](http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/)
42
Alex Sadleir 43
44 **Statistics**
45 [http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html)
Maxious 46
47 **Programming**
48
49 Programming is valuable skill for manipulating and displaying data.
Alex Sadleir 50 Basic tutorials for a variety of languages are available for free online or you can learn
Maxious 51
Alex Sadleir 52 interactively with websites like [http://www.codecademy.com/](http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0). for JavaScript or [http://www.learnpython.org/ ](http://www.learnpython.org/)or [http://tryruby.org](http://tryruby.org/)
Maxious 53
54 [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript) - especially for web applications and visualisations, you'll need a basic understanding of JS. Common libraries like prototype or jQuery can help
55
Alex Sadleir 56 **Accessibility/User Experience**
Maxious 57
58 WCAG guidelines not only make a web app accessible but make it a better experience for all users! Even if not making an app, good to consider these things to do and not do: [http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/](http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/)
59
Alex Sadleir 60
61
Maxious 62 # Developer Tools For Your Computer {#developer-tools-for-your-computer}
maxious 63 No matter what kind of application you have for the data, there are many tools you can use to better collaborate and manage your project.
Alex Sadleir 64
Maxious 65 ### Source Control
Alex Sadleir 66 Git / Subversion
Maxious 67
Maxious 68 [![](img/Screenshot-at-2012-04-29-172132-300x235.png "Git Screenshot")](http://progit.org/book/)
69
Maxious 70 [http://progit.org/book/](http://progit.org/book/)
Maxious 71
72 [http://svnbook.red-bean.com/](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/)
Maxious 73
74 [http://tortoisesvn.net/](http://tortoisesvn.net/)
Alex Sadleir 75
Maxious 76 [http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/](http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/)
77
78 ### Task Tracking -
79
80 Issue/task trackers allow you to outline the tasks required for your project and assign them to people to do.
Maxious 81
82 [Trello](https://trello.com/) and [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/) are free, lightweight project management tools suitable for a rapid project!
Alex Sadleir 83
Maxious 84 ## Hosted Developer Tools {#hosted-developer-tools}
85
Alex Sadleir 86 Can get many tools (source control, issue tracking) combined into one service cloud hosted so no setup required.
87
88 ### Github
89 Git obviously but svn/hg interfaces are possible. Provide their own GUI for Windows/OSX or use the variety of Git capable tools
90
91 ### Sourceforge
92
93 Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, CVS, issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
94
95 You can create your own Sourceforge project at [http://sourceforge.net/](http://sourceforge.net/)
96
97 ### Google Code Project Hosting
98
99 Git, Mercurial, and Subversion code. Issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
100
Alex Sadleir 101 You can host your Google Code project and get access to developer tools, APIs and documentation at [http://code.google.com/](http://code.google.com/)
102
103 # Applications of data hacking
Maxious 104
105 ## API Development {#api-development}
maxious 106
107
108 So an API isn't just an XML file ![;)](http://www.govhack.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
109
110 A good web based data API:
111
112 * Is logically organised
113 * Can filter returned data
114 * Can return results in different open formats (CSV/JSON etc.)
115 * Is efficient and responsive by using caching and databases appropriately
116 * Handles errors gracefully
117 * Monitors and controls access (to show benefit realised of API and prevent abuse)
118 * Provides appropriate documentation with examples
119
Maxious 120 Some people like sensis [http://](http://developers.sensis.com.au/)[developers.sensis.com.<wbr>au</wbr>](http://developers.sensis.com.au/)[/](http://developers.sensis.com.au/) use a provider like[http://](http://mashery.com/)[mashery.com](http://mashery.com/)[/](http://mashery.com/) or [https](https://apigee.com/)[://](https://apigee.com/)[apigee.com](https://apigee.com/) or [http://](http://apiaxle.com/)[apiaxle.com](http://apiaxle.com/)[/](http://apiaxle.com/) or [http://www.3scale.net/](http://www.3scale.net/) which handles making a good API for them.
121
Maxious 122 Atlassian have a great page on what makes a good API https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)
Alex Sadleir 123
Maxious 124 howto.gov api resources about choosing SOAP vs. REST etc. http://www.howto.gov/mobile/apis-in-government
125
126 API documentation is important too.
127 - WSDL or http://swagger.wordnik.com/ or https://github.com/mashery/iodocs
maxious 128 - Many web app frameworks can generate the documentation for you. For example Symfony for PHPhttp://symfony.com/ https://github.com/FriendsOfSymfony/FOSRestBundle http://williamdurand.fr/2012/08/02/rest-apis-with-symfony2-the-right-way/ https://github.com/nelmio/NelmioApiDocBundle better apis https://github.com/liip/LiipHelloBundle
Alex Sadleir 129 - or for Rails https://github.com/elc/rapi_doc https://github.com/Pajk/apipie-rails
Maxious 130
Alex Sadleir 131 http://amberonrails.com/building-stripes-api/
Alex Sadleir 132
Maxious 133 example WeatherTree weather API
134
Alex Sadleir 135
Alex Sadleir 136 ## Infographics and Data Visualisation {#data-visualisation}
137
138 Infographics try to contextualise charts and graphs to tell a story. Data vis builds on this to find new ways to design insight.
139
140 Most of the categories to follow have visualisation tools specific to their purpose.
maxious 141
142 You can find some data visualisation tools below:
143
144 [http://www.visualisingdata.com/index.php/2011/07/part-6-the-essential-collection-of-visualisation-resources/](http://www.visualisingdata.com/index.php/2011/07/part-6-the-essential-collection-of-visualisation-resources/)
145
146 Also check out [http://thejit.org](http://thejit.org/) &amp; [http://www.senchalabs.org/<wbr>philogl/</wbr>](http://www.senchalabs.org/philogl/) (contributed by Matt Adcock)
Maxious 147
148 Have to use visual art concepts, good color schemes http://www.r-bloggers.com/the-paul-tol-21-color-salute/
Maxious 149
150
151 - https://graphics.stanford.edu/wikis/cs448b-12-fall/ data viz theory
152 - http://drawingbynumbers.org/toolsandresources
153