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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.
Maxious 24
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.
Maxious 28 * Find the people and tools you need to prove/show/find. This rest of this page will help with the latter.
29 * Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out?
Maxious 30 Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
Alex Sadleir 31
Maxious 32 [![](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f-300x199.gif "Data Journalism Diagram")](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f.gif)</dt>
33 Illustration from Data Journalism Handbook, CC BY-SA 3.0</dd>
maxious 34
Maxious 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
43
Alex Sadleir 44 **Statistics**
45 [http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html](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
Alex Sadleir 51
Maxious 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/)
Alex Sadleir 53
Maxious 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
56 **Accessibility/User Experience**
Alex Sadleir 57
Maxious 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
60
Alex Sadleir 61
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.
maxious 64
Alex Sadleir 65 ### Source Control
Maxious 66 Git / Subversion
Alex Sadleir 67
Maxious 68 [![](img/Screenshot-at-2012-04-29-172132-300x235.png "Git Screenshot")](http://progit.org/book/)
Maxious 69
70 [http://progit.org/book/](http://progit.org/book/)
Maxious 71
Maxious 72 [http://svnbook.red-bean.com/](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/)
73
Maxious 74 [http://tortoisesvn.net/](http://tortoisesvn.net/)
75
Alex Sadleir 76 [http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/](http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/)
Maxious 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.
81
Maxious 82 [Trello](https://trello.com/) and [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/) are free, lightweight project management tools suitable for a rapid project!
83
Alex Sadleir 84 ## Hosted Developer Tools {#hosted-developer-tools}
Maxious 85
86 Can get many tools (source control, issue tracking) combined into one service cloud hosted so no setup required.
Alex Sadleir 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
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/)
Alex Sadleir 102
103 # Applications of data hacking
104
Maxious 105 ## API Development {#api-development}
106
maxious 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
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.
Maxious 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)
Maxious 123
Alex Sadleir 124 howto.gov api resources about choosing SOAP vs. REST etc. http://www.howto.gov/mobile/apis-in-government
Maxious 125
126 API documentation is important too.
maxious 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
129 - or for Rails https://github.com/elc/rapi_doc https://github.com/Pajk/apipie-rails
Alex Sadleir 130
Maxious 131 http://amberonrails.com/building-stripes-api/
Alex Sadleir 132
Alex Sadleir 133 example WeatherTree weather API
Maxious 134
135
Alex Sadleir 136 ## Infographics and Data Visualisation {#data-visualisation}
Alex Sadleir 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.
141
maxious 142 You can find some data visualisation tools below:
143
Maxious 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)
147
148 Have to use visual art concepts, good color schemes http://www.r-bloggers.com/the-paul-tol-21-color-salute/
149
150
Maxious 151 - https://graphics.stanford.edu/wikis/cs448b-12-fall/ data viz theory