I'm happy to announce three new judges for Design for America. Some great people have come out in support of the contest, and we're happy to have them join the program.
The first one is Kevin Hale From Wufoo. Wufoo is a great company that helps make it easy and cheap to build forms for the web. They are real pioneers in the space of form design, and we're really happy to have Kevin help judge the "Best Design of a Government Form" category.
One of our favorite tools for visualization is ManyEyes from IBM's Visual Communications Lab. Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg led this project at IBM and are now in the midst of starting their own firm: Flowing Media. We're happy to have them on board judging the visualization of House/Senate rule proceedings.
We still have many more judges to announce. Stay tuned!
Continue readingThe National Data Catalog is Live
After several months in development, I'm happy to announce that the National Data Catalog is up and operational. This site represents months of work by Team Ruby members Luigi Montanez and David James. Since July of 2009 when we kicked off the project, they've been working hard at building a great architecture for the system, and pulling in data pointers from sites like Data.gov, The DC OCTO and Utah's Data Catalog. Presently, we, alongside our volunteers are working on importers for DataSF, Rhode Island, and New York City.
Continue readingScreenscraping in the Former Soviet Bloc
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to go to Georgia and hang out with the folks at the Tbilisi chapter of Transparency International. It was a great opportunity to learn about a part of the world that I was completely unfamiliar with, to share some technical knowledge, and -- somewhat unexpectedly -- to gain some perspective on the work we do at Sunlight.
Health and Human Services Joins Design for America Contest
Health data is one of those no-brainer transparency issues. While we all have our favorite datasets we want to see released, the Department of Health and Human Services has the capacity to save lives and billions of dollars when it releases its data.
I spoke with Todd Park, the CTO of HHS about his plans, and he asked if there was a way to get developers interested in data from the Agency. Thanks to the Open Government Directive-- which encourages agencies to participate in "innovation contests," a pretty easy fit occured to the both of us: HHS should have a category in Design for America.
So that's what we're going to do.
Continue readingIntroducing TransparencyData.com
Today we're releasing TransparencyData.com, a new service from the Sunlight Foundation, and technically the most challenging thing we've ever done. TransparencyData lets you query and download bulk data about transparency. We're launching with two datasets that have never been merged before, and without an unprecedented amount of access.
We've merged all of OpenSecrets data with all the data from FollowTheMoney.org allowing you, for the first time, to get a clear picture of campaign contributions at both the state and federal level. Before now, there were two datasets: the OpenSecrets data focusing on federal data, and the FollowTheMoney data, focusing on state data. Now, finally, you can use TransparencyData.com to query, filter, and download this data.
Continue readingGovernment Data Sets – Managing Expectations
US Open Government plans were released today. As part of this process, federal agencies are beginning to release data sets publicly in ways they never have before. Some substantial and thought-provoking blog posts over the last few weeks have discussed how government can do open data well.
There are significant cultural and social sticking points that have yet to be addressed in releasing data openly. A discussion with a colleague from NASA last week confirmed how far away most agencies are from the luxury of considering the innovative ideas for data set management available to them. Here's why:
Continue readingIntroducing MFNCMS
As you know, Sunlight Labs has never been a fan of the Content Management System-- we think that overall, they're too clunky and get in the way of an organization's real objective. Putting content online. We started asking ourselves-- is there an easier way? Could we figure out a more agile, nimble way to do things.
Continue readingRecovery.gov: Stop with the Data Defense, Start with the Conversation
This week's Recovery.gov "Chairman's Corner" reminds me of my first soccer game. At 5 years old, I was so excited to get the ball passed to me. I was so focused on keeping my eye on that ball just like my Dad told me. And as I dribbled it down the field I was thrilled to hear my parents scream in support. I was amazed at how good I was at this game-- nobody from the other team was blocking me and own teammates seemed to be flapping their arms encouraging me to take the shot! As I reached the end of the field, I grinned and gave that ball the kick of a lifetime, only to watch it fly by my own goalie's quizzical face.
Devaney's post is a defensive one, speaking to criticism from who he calls "journalists and Internet grouches," and an attempt to "bury the urban legends about the Board and the recovery program." Most of the critiques came out about six months ago, in October, when the data was released.
Continue readingSummer Jobs at Sunlight Labs
While we're participating in Google's Summer of Code, we're also looking for some great developers to come spend some time learning the ins-and-outs of public datasets over the course of the summer.
If you're a student who wants to pick up great skills-- learning how to scrape and transform data, learning how to research and verify data's accuracy or learning how to architect big-but-not-very-big datasets, or if you're a super engineer who just wants to give back this summer, we'd be happy to talk to you.
Here are our four Sunlight Labs summer slots:
Continue readingDrafting Guidelines for Government Data Catalogs
A major focus of the Sunlight Labs is to push government to publish its data online. In recent months, we've gained in-depth familiarity with government data catalogs through our work on the National Data Catalog. The most prominent example of a data catalog is data.gov. Since its launch last year, a handful of states and cities have followed suit with their own efforts. As more data catalogs come online, we want to make sure their contents are open and exchangeable. We want to determine how to best structure the data catalog itself, and we want to ensure that the metadata it contains -- the data about the data -- exists in the most accessible way possible.
Last week, Clay posted three challenges for the community to tackle, and this is challenge #3. We're looking to start this conversation now and move towards consensus within a few months. I was at Transparency Camp, digging deeper into this topic, putting us on the path to make recommendations that governments can adopt quickly.
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