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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 ...
Maxious 5
Maxious 6 # How to register and submit your entry
Alex Sadleir 7 ## Registering your team
8 Coming Soon: how to use the website "Hacker Space" to register and find teams.
Maxious 9
Alex Sadleir 10 ## Preparing your submission
Maxious 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
19
20 # General References {#general-data-hacking-and-programming-references}
Maxious 21
22 ## Who can be a hack day participant
maxious 23 There are many roles you can play; coder, designer UX/graphics
Maxious 24
25 ## Definitions
26 - definitions, open licence reuse permissive hacker hack data journalism data vis UX etc.
27
Maxious 28 ## The basics of being a data scientist
29
maxious 30 * 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 31 * Find the people and tools you need to prove/show/find. This rest of this page will help with the latter.
Maxious 32 * Analyse and present results - were they what you expected? Do they help explain to others what you have found out?
33 Can present as a interactive data visualisation or a web/mobile application or just a infographic/motion graphics video that tells a story.
Maxious 34
Alex Sadleir 35 [![](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f-300x199.gif "Data Journalism Diagram")](img/How-to-participate-in-GovHack_html_m6a65720f.gif)</dt>
Maxious 36 Illustration from Data Journalism Handbook, CC BY-SA 3.0</dd>
37
maxious 38 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 39 [datajournalismhandbook.org](http://datajournalismhandbook.org/)
40
41 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
42 practical advice check out Data Analysis with Open Source Tools by Philipp K. Janert
43 For further reading in this space
44 [http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/](http://flowingdata.com/2012/04/27/data-and-visualization-blogs-worth-following/)
45
46
47 **Statistics**
48 [http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/html/index.html)
49
50 **Programming**
51
52 Programming is valuable skill for manipulating and displaying data.
53 Basic tutorials for a variety of languages are available for free online or you can learn
54
maxious 55 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/)
Maxious 56
maxious 57 [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
Maxious 58
59 **Accessibility/User Experience**
60
61 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/)
62
63
64
Alex Sadleir 65 # Developer Tools For Your Computer {#developer-tools-for-your-computer}
66 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 67
maxious 68 ### Source Control
69 Git / Subversion
Maxious 70
Alex Sadleir 71 [![](img/Screenshot-at-2012-04-29-172132-300x235.png "Git Screenshot")](http://progit.org/book/)
Maxious 72
73 [http://progit.org/book/](http://progit.org/book/)
74
75 [http://svnbook.red-bean.com/](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/)
76
77 [http://tortoisesvn.net/](http://tortoisesvn.net/)
78
79 [http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/](http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/)
80
81 ### Task Tracking -
82
83 Issue/task trackers allow you to outline the tasks required for your project and assign them to people to do.
84
85 [Trello](https://trello.com/) and [Workflowy](https://workflowy.com/) are free, lightweight project management tools suitable for a rapid project!
86
Maxious 87 ## Hosted Developer Tools {#hosted-developer-tools}
88
89 Can get many tools (source control, issue tracking) combined into one service cloud hosted so no setup required.
90
91 ### Github
92 Git obviously but svn/hg interfaces are possible. Provide their own GUI for Windows/OSX or use the variety of Git capable tools
93
94 ### Sourceforge
95
96 Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, CVS, issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
97
98 You can create your own Sourceforge project at [http://sourceforge.net/](http://sourceforge.net/)
99
100 ### Google Code Project Hosting
101
102 Git, Mercurial, and Subversion code. Issue tracker, wiki, release file downloads. Unlimited free use for open source projects.
103
104 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/)
105
Alex Sadleir 106 # Applications of data hacking
107
108 ## API Development {#api-development}
Maxious 109
110
maxious 111 So an API isn't just an XML file ![;)](http://www.govhack.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
112
113 A good web based data API:
114
115 * Is logically organised
116 * Can filter returned data
117 * Can return results in different open formats (CSV/JSON etc.)
118 * Is efficient and responsive by using caching and databases appropriately
119 * Handles errors gracefully
120 * Monitors and controls access (to show benefit realised of API and prevent abuse)
121 * Provides appropriate documentation with examples
122
123 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.
124
Maxious 125 Atlassian have a great page on what makes a good API https://developer.atlassian.com/display/REST/Atlassian+REST+API+Design+Guidelines+version+1)
126
Maxious 127 API
maxious 128 - howto.gov api resources about choosing SOAP vs. REST etc. http://www.howto.gov/mobile/apis-in-government
Maxious 129 - http://training.sunlightfoundation.com/module/data-visualizations-google-docs/
maxious 130 - api documentation is important too.
Maxious 131 - WSDL or http://swagger.wordnik.com/ or https://github.com/mashery/iodocs
maxious 132 - 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
133 - or for Rails https://github.com/elc/rapi_doc https://github.com/Pajk/apipie-rails
Maxious 134 -
Maxious 135 http://amberonrails.com/building-stripes-api/
Alex Sadleir 136 example WeatherTree weather API
Maxious 137
138
Alex Sadleir 139 ## Infographics and Data Visualisation {#data-visualisation}
Alex Sadleir 140
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
maxious 145 You can find some data visualisation tools below:
146
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
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
Maxious 151 Have to use visual art concepts, good color schemes http://www.r-bloggers.com/the-paul-tol-21-color-salute/
152
Maxious 153
154 - https://graphics.stanford.edu/wikis/cs448b-12-fall/ data viz theory
155 - http://drawingbynumbers.org/toolsandresources
156
157 examples - http://sunfoundation.tumblr.com/
Alex Sadleir 158 ## The Open Budget
159
Maxious 160 tools - http://selection.datavisualization.ch/ data viz tools catalog
161