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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
21 # General References {#general-data-hacking-and-programming-references}
Maxious 22
Maxious 23 ## Who can be a hack day participant
24 There are many roles you can play as a hack day participant; coder, designer UX/graphics.
maxious 25
Maxious 26 ## The basics of being a data scientist
Maxious 27
28 * 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 29 * Find the people and tools you need to prove/show/find. This rest of this page will help with the latter.
Alex Sadleir 30 * Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out?
Maxious 31 Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
32
maxious 33 [![](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f-300x199.gif "Data Journalism Diagram")](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f.gif)</dt>
Maxious 34 Illustration from Data Journalism Handbook, CC BY-SA 3.0</dd>
35
36 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
37 [datajournalismhandbook.org](http://datajournalismhandbook.org/)
38
39 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
40 practical advice check out Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K. Janert
41 For further reading in this space
42 [http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/](http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/)
Alex Sadleir 43
44
45 **Statistics**
Maxious 46
47 A great guide to statistics is
48 [Think Stats](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html)
49
Alex Sadleir 50 **Programming**
Maxious 51
Alex Sadleir 52 Programming is valuable skill for manipulating and displaying data.
Maxious 53 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/)
54
55 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 56
Maxious 57 **Accessibility/User Experience**
58
59 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 60
61
Maxious 62
maxious 63 # Developer Tools For Your Computer {#developer-tools-for-your-computer}
Alex Sadleir 64 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 65
Alex Sadleir 66 ### Source Control
Maxious 67 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 68
69 [![](img/Screenshot-at-2012-04-29-172132-300x235.png "Git Screenshot")](http://progit.org/book/)
Maxious 70
Maxious 71 [http://progit.org/book/](http://progit.org/book/)
72
Maxious 73 [http://svnbook.red-bean.com/](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/)
74
Alex Sadleir 75 [http://tortoisesvn.net/](http://tortoisesvn.net/)
Maxious 76
77 [http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/](http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/)
78
79 ### Task Tracking
80
Maxious 81 Issue/task trackers allow you to outline the tasks required for your project and assign them to people to do.
82
Alex Sadleir 83 [Trello](https://trello.com/) and [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/) are free, lightweight project management tools suitable for a rapid project!
Maxious 84
85 ## Hosted Developer Tools {#hosted-developer-tools}
Alex Sadleir 86
87 Can get many tools (source control, issue tracking) combined into one service cloud hosted so there's no setup required.
88
89 ### Github
90 Git obviously but svn/hg interfaces are also available. Provide their own GUI for Windows/OSX or use a variety of Git capable tools
91
92 ### Sourceforge
93
94 Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, CVS, issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
95
96 You can create your own Sourceforge project at [http://sourceforge.net/](http://sourceforge.net/)
97
98 ### Google Code Project Hosting
99
100 Git, Mercurial, and Subversion code. Issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
Alex Sadleir 101
102 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/)
103
Maxious 104
105 # Applications of data hacking
maxious 106
107 ## API Development {#api-development}
108
109
110 So an API isn't just an XML file ![;)](http://www.govhack.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
111
112 A good web based data API:
113
114 * Is logically organised
115 * Can filter returned data
116 * Can return results in different open formats (CSV/JSON etc.)
117 * Is efficient and responsive by using caching and databases appropriately
118 * Handles errors gracefully
119 * Monitors and controls access (to show benefit realised of API and prevent abuse)
Maxious 120 * Provides appropriate documentation with examples
121
Maxious 122 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.
Alex Sadleir 123
Maxious 124 Atlassian have a great page on what makes a good API https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)
125
126 HowTo.gov has a bunch of api resources about choosing SOAP vs. REST etc. http://www.howto.gov/mobile/apis-in-government
127
maxious 128 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 129 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 130
Alex Sadleir 131 better apis https://github.com/liip/LiipHelloBundle
Alex Sadleir 132 - or for Rails https://github.com/elc/rapi_doc https://github.com/Pajk/apipie-rails
Maxious 133
134 http://amberonrails.com/building-stripes-api/
Alex Sadleir 135
Alex Sadleir 136 example WeatherTree weather API
137
138
139 ## Infographics and Data Visualisation {#data-visualisation}
140
maxious 141 Infographics try to contextualise charts and graphs to tell a story. Data vis builds on this to find new ways to design insight.
142
143 Most of the categories to follow have visualisation tools specific to their purpose.
144
145 You can find some data visualisation tools below:
146
Maxious 147 [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/)
148
Maxious 149 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)
150
151 Have to use visual art concepts, good color schemes http://www.r-bloggers.com/the-paul-tol-21-color-salute/