GovTrack's map of congressional districts to is now more responsive, more legible and easier to reproduce.
Continue readingLearning to design in the open
We’ve been experimenting with "open design" in our work to facilitate collaboration and to increase feedback and dialogue at every step along the way.
Continue readingGitHub may be the next step for government regulation
Last week, the Office of Management and Budget published suggested implementation guidance for the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act. Why is it a big deal? It's on GitHub.
Continue readingPresident Obama is not on GitHub
While President Obama may have written his first line of code, he doesn't have a GitHub account. We need to clear up some confusion over the PresidentObama account we made.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Oakland’s new campaign finance app
Open Disclosure is the product of a unique partnership between the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission, which enforces Oakland’s campaign finance laws, and OpenOakland, a civic innovation organization.
Continue readingMaking JSON as simple as a spreadsheet
Recently, I gave a workshop at Open Data Day whose goal was to demystify JSON. I searched, but couldn't find any tools to do this that worked inside the browser. The only solution was to make a new one!
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Making transparency real — Launching the Open Duka platform
Introducing: Open Duka, a catalytic tool for transparency, accountability and governance that showcases the power and use of data that is liberated from multiple sources and organized in one platform.
Continue readingPDF Liberation Hackathon and the need for more civic innovation
Public Sector Credit Solutions and Sunlight Foundation organized a multi-location PDF Liberation hackathon which helped free some much needed data but also exposed the need for more civic innovation.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: OpenCourts: Bringing transparency to the Slovak judiciary
According to the latest Global Corruption Barometer, the judiciary in Slovakia is the least trusted institution in the world, and 70% of Slovakians consider it to be corrupt. This is partly because the Slovak judiciary system has no external influence and enjoys a very high level of independence not only from other branches of power, but also from the general public. Last July, the OpenCourts portal (available only in Slovak and the first open data project dealing with the judiciary branch) was launched by Transparency International Slovakia. Its main goal is to make the Slovakian system more transparent and allow the public to control courts and judges in order to hold them accountable.
OpenGov Voices: Chasing the 8-hour app
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight 
Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Tom Meagher is the co-founder of Hack Jersey and the data editor at Digital First Media's Project Thunderdome in New York City. Follow Hack Jersey at @hackjersey or www.hackjersey.com. Reach Tom at @ultracasual.
A few weeks ago, Hack Jersey brought a group of journalists and developers together to wrestle with campaign finance data. We thought it would be a good opportunity for many to get their hands dirty and to start thinking about new ways of reporting and building with the data.
In one room of our event at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, a group of journalists went on a data expedition, learning how to explore reports from the state's Election Law Enforcement Commission. In another, we gathered developers to try to build a campaign finance app for New Jersey using the Sunlight Foundation's APIs in a single work session.
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