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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 [Screenr] (http://www.screenr.com/) , [ActivePresenter Free Edition](http://atomisystems.com/activepresenter/free-edition/) 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
21 # General References
Maxious 22
23
Alex Sadleir 24 ## The basics of being a data scientist
Maxious 25
Maxious 26 * 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.
27 * Find the people and tools you need to prove/show/find. This rest of this page will help with the latter.
maxious 28 * Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out?
Maxious 29 Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
Maxious 30
31 [![](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f-300x199.gif "Data Journalism Diagram")](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f.gif)</dt>
Maxious 32 Illustration from Data Journalism Handbook, CC BY-SA 3.0</dd>
Alex Sadleir 33
Maxious 34 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
35 [datajournalismhandbook.org](http://datajournalismhandbook.org/)
maxious 36
Maxious 37 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
38 practical advice check out Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K. Janert
39 For further reading in this space
40 [http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/](http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/)
41
42
43 **Statistics**
44
45 A great guide to statistics is
Alex Sadleir 46 [Think Stats](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html)
47
48 **Programming**
Maxious 49
50 Programming is valuable skill for manipulating and displaying data.
51 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/)
52
Alex Sadleir 53 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)
Maxious 54
Alex Sadleir 55 **Accessibility/User Experience**
Maxious 56
57 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/)
58
Alex Sadleir 59
Maxious 60
61 # Developer Tools For Your Computer
62 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 63
64 ### Source Control
Maxious 65 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!
maxious 66
Alex Sadleir 67 [![](img/Screenshot-at-2012-04-29-172132-300x235.png "Git Screenshot")](http://progit.org/book/)
Maxious 68
Alex Sadleir 69 There are [tutorials on git](http://progit.org/book/) and GUIs to help you like [TortoiseGit for Windows](http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/) and [Atlassian SourceTree for Windows and OSX](http://sourcetreeapp.com/) (or if you prefer the console [tig](http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/git-tig/))
Maxious 70 There is also a [manual for Subversion](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/) and a [similar GUI for Subversion](http://tortoisesvn.net/)
71
72
73 ### Task Tracking
74
75 Issue/task trackers allow you to outline the tasks required for your project and assign them to people to do.
76
77 [Trello](https://trello.com/) and [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/) are free, lightweight project management tools suitable for a rapid project!
78
Alex Sadleir 79 ## Virtual Servers
Maxious 80 Many free services to try out virtual/cloud servers before scaling up: https://www.chunkhost.com/ or heroku or https://www.appfog.com/pricing/
81
82 ## Hosted Developer Tools
83
84 Can get many tools (source control, issue tracking) combined into one service cloud hosted so there's no setup required.
Maxious 85
86 ### Github / BitBucket
Alex Sadleir 87 Github provides Git but [Subversion (svn)](https://github.com/blog/626-announcing-svn-support) and [Mercurial (hg)](http://hg-git.github.io/) interfaces are also available. Github provide their own GUI for Windows/OSX or you can use a variety of Git capable tools https://github.com/
Maxious 88 Similarly Atlassian provide BitBucket accessible via Git and Mercurial (hg) https://bitbucket.org/
89
Alex Sadleir 90 ### Sourceforge
91
92 Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, CVS, issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
93
94 You can create your own Sourceforge project at [http://sourceforge.net/](http://sourceforge.net/)
95
96 ### Google Code Project Hosting
97
98 Git, Mercurial, and Subversion code. Issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
99
100 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/)
101
102
103 # Applications of data hacking
104
Alex Sadleir 105 ## API Development
106
107
Maxious 108 So an API isn't just an XML file!
109
maxious 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
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
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)
123
Maxious 124 HowTo.gov has a bunch of api resources about choosing SOAP vs. REST etc. http://www.howto.gov/mobile/apis-in-government
125
Maxious 126 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 127 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 https://github.com/liip/LiipHelloBundle
Maxious 128 Or for Ruby on Rails there is is https://github.com/elc/rapi_doc https://github.com/Pajk/apipie-rails
129
130 For example [Stripe's API](http://amberonrails.com/building-stripes-api/) or previous GovHack entrant [WeatheredOak](http://www.govhack.org/2012/06/02/weatheredoak/)
131
maxious 132
Alex Sadleir 133 ## Infographics and Data Visualisation
Maxious 134
Alex Sadleir 135 Infographics try to contextualise charts and graphs to tell a story. Data vis builds on this to find new ways to design insight.
Alex Sadleir 136
Maxious 137 Most of the categories to follow have visualisation tools specific to their purpose.
138
Alex Sadleir 139 You can find some data visualisation tools below:
Alex Sadleir 140
141 [Essential Colletion](http://www.visualisingdata.com/index.php/2011/07/part-6-the-essential-collection-of-visualisation-resources/)
142 [Drawing By Numbers Tools and Resources](http://drawingbynumbers.org/toolsandresources)
143 - http://selection.datavisualization.ch/ data viz tools catalog
144 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 145
146 A good infographic should use visual art concepts and [good color schemes](http://www.r-bloggers.com/the-paul-tol-21-color-salute/). See the [data visualisation guidelines from the international journalism festival](http://schoolofdata.org/2013/04/26/data-visualization-guidelines-by-gregor-aisch-international-journalism-festival/)
147 For more information on the theory of data visualisation check out the [Stanford CS448B notes](https://graphics.stanford.edu/wikis/cs448b-12-fall/) or [The Ultimate Collection of Data Storytelling Resources](http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/the-ultimate-collection-of-data-storytelling-resources/)
148
149 Some examples of data visualisation can be seen on [the Sunlight Foundation tumblr](http://sunfoundation.tumblr.com/) or at the GovHack alumn [The Open Budget](http://www/.theopenbudget.org)
150