* Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out? Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
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
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
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/)
[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
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/)
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_2f0199ff1.png)Description: Planning Alerts takes data from local government development applications and sends alerts to users based on what applications are lodged in their area.
Description: Displays connections between government contracts, business details, politician responsibilities, lobbyists, clients of lobbyists, political donors and the location of these entities.
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.
Atlassian have a great page on what makes a good API [https](https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)[://](https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)[developer.atlassian.<wbr>com</wbr>](https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)[/display/REST/](https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)[Atlassian](https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)[+<wbr>REST+API+Design+Guidelines+<wbr>version+1</wbr></wbr>](https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)
Also check out [http://thejit.org](http://thejit.org/) & [http://www.senchalabs.org/<wbr>philogl/</wbr>](http://www.senchalabs.org/philogl/) (contributed by Matt Adcock)
Check out the[ GeoRabble Boundary Mapper's Cookbook](http://georabble.org/2012/05/31/the-boundary-mappers-cookbook/) to see how you can tie all these things together!
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/postgisexample.jpg)PostGIS is an extension for the PostgreSQL database server that allows you to store and manipulate geospatial data on a large scale. For example finding which points are in an area or what points are closest . It is also very useful for storing geospatial data because it can convert between all major formats including ESRI Shape files and Google Earth/Maps KML.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m50afbe88.jpg)QGIS is a graphical desktop application that allows viewing and editing of geospatial data. Some good base maps are available by adding the WMS layer/server [http://irs.gis-lab.info/](http://irs.gis-lab.info/)
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/fusiontablesscreenshot.jpg)Input a numerical values and areas to a spreadsheet and maps are produced
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/cartographerjs.png)Input data as JSON and maps are produced.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_512fcbe1.jpg)Display points and different layers. Leaflet is the easiest to use if you just want to show points with popups when clicked on.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_4dda24a4.jpg)Google Earth provides 3\. viewing of KML/GML files which represent points and shapes, both through a desktop application and a web plugin. These can be extended with interactive features that allow you to view by timeline or have animated tours between different points. You can also develop and customise your own viewer with the open source [NASA World Wind toolkit.](http://goworldwind.org/demos/)
Tabular data may have duplicate entries or incorrect formats (varying ways to enter dates/phonenumbers etc.). There are tools to quickly fix common problems
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/google_refine_interface.png)Clean up duplicate or inconsistent data entries.
Great basic analysis and viewing. Older versions can be limited to 6500\. or so rows. Eg [http://www.tcij.org/training-material/car/data-mining/3474](http://www.tcij.org/training-material/car/data-mining/3474)
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_209ee972.jpg)Next step up, large datasets can be manipulated/extracted efficiently for example [http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/tutorial-window.html](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/tutorial-window.html) , no built-in data visualisation though.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m53b7ee38.png)Javascript data transformation library - especially good if you want to use the output for javascript interactive visualisations because the transformations can be done on-the-fly by users.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/rstudio-windows.png)Advanced data analysis, can find and visualise trends in large datasets. Some reference resources to learn the language [http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.html ](http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.html)There are also some addons that provide graphical interfaces that make it easier to use such as Rattle [http://rattle.togaware.com/](http://rattle.togaware.com/) , RStudio [http://rstudio.org/](http://rstudio.org/) or Deducer [http://www.deducer.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DeducerManual](http://www.deducer.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DeducerManual)
- http://yihui.name/knitr/ makes reports including google widgets/charts/maps via http://www.r-bloggers.com/googlevis-0-3-2-is-released-better-integration-with-knitr/
Create visualisations from various data formats by dragging and dropping. Free trial available on website. [](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/Tableau-Screenshot.jpg)
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m11006fce.jpg)Javascript based charts for webpages.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m90d8020.jpg)Javascript visualisations that are more interactive or intricate than charts. Can be hard to learn but there are examples and easier to use premade visualisations such as [word clouds](http://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/), [realtime filtering of barcharts](http://square.github.com/crossfilter/), or [bubble trees for comparing amount sizes](https://github.com/okfn/bubbletree).
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/webadmin-data.png)Help understand relationships - how is X connected to Y and via what other entities they both are connected to. Imports and exports
Both can be accessed using a preexisting tool like Gremlin or by writing a simple Java/Python/Ruby application. Queries can be tested in the built in data browser.
NetworkX is a social network analysis library for python. Many advanced analyses built in like finding communities within a graph. Also good for converting data into graphs.
- don't use network viz if what you actually have is a tree/hierarchy with no interconnections http://www.randelshofer.ch/treeviz/ http://thejit.org/demos/ http://mbostock.github.com/protovis/ex/treemap.html http://blog.pixelingene.com/2011/07/building-a-tree-diagram-in-d3-js/d3 for Trees and Hierarchies
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_7579906d.png)Classic directed graph visualisation tool, can even [generate images online without installing](http://ashitani.jp/gv/) or use in webpages with [javascript port of software](http://code.google.com/p/canviz/). File format ["dot" very easy to learn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_language)
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_74d01d05.jpg)Desktop graph editor and renderer. Many good automatic layout algorithms even for very large graphs.
[](http://www.govhack.org/wp-content/uploads/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6006eaf3.jpg)Javascript graph viewer, can use GEXF files exported from tools like neo4j, gephi and NetworkX.