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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 and data visualisations/infographics.
4
5 The text of this toolkit is open for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution licence and improvements are encouraged via Git http://github.com/maxious/govhack-tools or via email patches to govhack@lambdacomplex.org
Maxious 6
Maxious 7 # How to register and submit your entry
Alex Sadleir 8 ## Registering your team
9 Coming Soon: how to use the website "Hacker Space" to register and find teams.
Maxious 10
Alex Sadleir 11 ## Preparing your submission
Maxious 12
Maxious 13 You should record a 3 minute speech and mix images/text to accompany.
Maxious 14 http://www.screenr.com/ and other screencasting tools allow you to demo apps.
Maxious 15 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 16
Maxious 17 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 18 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 19
20
Alex Sadleir 21 # General References {#general-data-hacking-and-programming-references}
Maxious 22
Maxious 23 ## The basics of being a data scientist
Maxious 24
25 * 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.
maxious 26 * Find the people and tools you need to prove/show/find. This rest of this page will help with the latter.
Maxious 27 * Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out?
Maxious 28 Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
29
Maxious 30 [![](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f-300x199.gif "Data Journalism Diagram")](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f.gif)</dt>
Alex Sadleir 31 Illustration from Data Journalism Handbook, CC BY-SA 3.0</dd>
Maxious 32
33 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
maxious 34 [datajournalismhandbook.org](http://datajournalismhandbook.org/)
Maxious 35
36 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
37 practical advice check out Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K. Janert
38 For further reading in this space
39 [http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/](http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/)
40
41
42 **Statistics**
43
Alex Sadleir 44 A great guide to statistics is
45 [Think Stats](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html)
46
Maxious 47 **Programming**
48
49 Programming is valuable skill for manipulating and displaying data.
50 Basic tutorials for a variety of languages are available for free online or you can learn interactively with websites like [Codecademy for JavaScript](http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0), [Learn Python](http://www.learnpython.org/) or [Try Ruby](http://tryruby.org/)
Alex Sadleir 51
Maxious 52 For web applications and visualisations, you'll need a basic understanding of JavaScript in order to configure pre made libraries like jQuery. A good source for Javascript information is the [Mozilla Development Network Javascript Page](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript)
Alex Sadleir 53
Maxious 54 **Accessibility/User Experience**
55
56 Following accessibility guidelines not only make a application 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 when designing for humans: [http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/](http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/)
Alex Sadleir 57
Maxious 58
59
60 # Developer Tools For Your Computer {#developer-tools-for-your-computer}
Alex Sadleir 61 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 62
Maxious 63 ### Source Control
maxious 64 Using a version control system like Git or Subversion allows you to keep many different versions of what you have been working on so you can collaborate with others or simply back up your files so you don't lose them!
Alex Sadleir 65
Maxious 66 [![](img/Screenshot-at-2012-04-29-172132-300x235.png "Git Screenshot")](http://progit.org/book/)
Alex Sadleir 67
Maxious 68 [tutorials on git](http://progit.org/book/) and
Maxious 69 [GUIs to help you](http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/)
Maxious 70
Maxious 71 [manual for Subversion](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/)
72 and a [similar GUI for Subversion](http://tortoisesvn.net/)
Alex Sadleir 73
Maxious 74
75 ### Task Tracking
76
77 Issue/task trackers allow you to outline the tasks required for your project and assign them to people to do.
78
Maxious 79 [Trello](https://trello.com/) and [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/) are free, lightweight project management tools suitable for a rapid project!
80
81 ## Hosted Developer Tools {#hosted-developer-tools}
Alex Sadleir 82
Maxious 83 Can get many tools (source control, issue tracking) combined into one service cloud hosted so there's no setup required.
Alex Sadleir 84
Maxious 85 ### Github
Maxious 86 Git obviously but svn/hg interfaces are also available. Provide their own GUI for Windows/OSX or use a variety of Git capable tools
87
88 ### Sourceforge
89
90 Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, CVS, issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
91
92 You can create your own Sourceforge project at [http://sourceforge.net/](http://sourceforge.net/)
93
94 ### Google Code Project Hosting
95
96 Git, Mercurial, and Subversion code. Issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
97
98 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/)
99
100
101 # Applications of data hacking
Alex Sadleir 102
Alex Sadleir 103 ## API Development {#api-development}
104
Alex Sadleir 105
Maxious 106 So an API isn't just an XML file ![;)](http://www.govhack.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
107
Alex Sadleir 108 A good web based data API:
109
110 * Is logically organised
111 * Can filter returned data
112 * Can return results in different open formats (CSV/JSON etc.)
113 * Is efficient and responsive by using caching and databases appropriately
114 * Handles errors gracefully
115 * Monitors and controls access (to show benefit realised of API and prevent abuse)
116 * Provides appropriate documentation with examples
117
118 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.
119
120 Atlassian have a great page on what makes a good API https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)
121
Maxious 122 HowTo.gov has a bunch of api resources about choosing SOAP vs. REST etc. http://www.howto.gov/mobile/apis-in-government
123
Maxious 124 API documentation is important too! Traditionally for SOAP APIs, you use WSDL but for REST try [Swagger](http://swagger.wordnik.com/) or [iodocs](https://github.com/mashery/iodocs)
Alex Sadleir 125 Many web app frameworks can generate the documentation for you. For example Symfony for PHP http://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
Maxious 126 Or for Ruby on Rails there is is https://github.com/elc/rapi_doc https://github.com/Pajk/apipie-rails
Alex Sadleir 127
maxious 128 better apis https://github.com/liip/LiipHelloBundle
Maxious 129
Alex Sadleir 130 http://amberonrails.com/building-stripes-api/
Maxious 131
132 example WeatherTree weather API
Alex Sadleir 133
Alex Sadleir 134
135 ## Infographics and Data Visualisation {#data-visualisation}
136
137 Infographics try to contextualise charts and graphs to tell a story. Data vis builds on this to find new ways to design insight.
138
maxious 139 Most of the categories to follow have visualisation tools specific to their purpose.
140
Maxious 141 You can find some data visualisation tools below:
142
143 [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/)
144
145 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 146