Download - Opengovtracker lightening
open gov tracker
robbie schingler | [email protected] | @schingler | nasa ames research center
2010 government web and new media conference – innovations showcase 27 april 2010 | washington, dc
<motivation>
1.f.2“Each Open Government Webpage shall incorporate a mechanism for the public to provide input on the agency’s Open Government Plan”
-- Open Government Directive
GSA as a hero
5 february 2010
The General Services Administration (GSA) offered an on-line dialog to the 24 CFO Act Agencies.
22 agencies accepted.
www.usa.gov/webcontent/open/engagementtool.shtml
22 different sites
6 february 2010
#snowmaggedon
</motivation>
<what we did>
1 #snowmageddon2 developers2 half-days1 full-day1 flat webpage
www.opengovtracker.com
tracks all* gov’t ideas, votes, comments
* if using Ideascale
top ideas across gov’t in each category
highlighting agencies with most/least
ideas, votes, and comments
stats of each agencytweet stats
go to forum and submit idea
detailed stats of each agency
all number stored every 5 minutes and available for
download
</what we did>
<how we did it>
APIIdeascale has an API
Application Programming Interface
We did this on our own time | Used our own server on a cloud-like service
Used free and open source components:
• tornado = light-weight, open source, web development framework• mongodb = scalable, open source, document-oriented database• google chart api = restful api for chart generation• uservoice = free, web feedback forum to enhance the site• github = web-based hosting service for projects that use Git revision control system
1 #snowmageddon2 developers2 half-days1 full-day1 flat webpage
</how we did it>
<lessons learned>
APIApplication Programming
Interface
use services with APIsstructured data can be mashed up
keep it new, fresh
cron-job automatically pulled in new infono-humans needed
government data on-line in real-time
keep it simple
make it immediately usefulhad one function
one page
make it fun, accessible
“something exciting is happening”“needs some love”
develop quickly, iterate if useful
allow developers to work in sprintsincubate and sandbox hacks
use open source software (with active communities)see what works and iterate
listen to feedback
</lessons learned>
<other&all agencies>
create a government sandbox for government programmers to publicly
alpha test new applications
www.nasa.gov/open/plan/open-source-development.html
NASA Nebula Could Computing Platformwww.nasa.gov/open/plan/nebula.html
</other&all agencies>