Opengovtracker lightening

open gov tracker

robbie schingler | robbie.schingler@nasa.gov | @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>