Welcome to the github page for the Code for DC Data portal.
Hopefully you've already found Code for DC. If not, click the link and learn about how we are a 501c3 non-profit engaged in volunteer civic hacking. The volunteers of Code for DC use their tech related skills to work on projects that hopefully make the lives of DC residents and visitors a bit better. This Data Portal is one of those projects. Here we collect gobs of data and make it easily available so that people can conduct research, make visualizations, or teach themselves the tools of data analysis / data science.
No, it is not. Code for DC is not associated with the DC Government, although we do collaborate from time to time. Our page is this: data.codefordc.org. Follow this link to the DC Government page: Open Data DC.
Well, 1) someone gets paid to make government page, so it's currently a bit prettier than ours. 2) The DC Government page has specific responsibilities and authorities of what they are supposed to collect. We can be somewhat more broad in the data we have as the datasets don't have to come from official government sources.
Great. We can always use help. We have both very short projects as well as longer term heavy lifts to fit your volunteer desires. We like to see this overall project divided into three streams.
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Portal Interface Development. The portal is built on top of something called CKAN which is an industry standard data portal framework used by many governmental organizations around the world. We need people familiar with web development to improve usability as well as presentation of our datasets. Here is a page that describes how you can our page loaded onto your system for development using docker.
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Data Analysis. Most people who come to our project either have some experience with data work or really want to learn about it. We try to define projects which lift existing data out of the portal for manipulation, study, and visualization that can be used by a variety of stakeholders either in Code for DC or around the city.
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Definition of New Stakeholders / Projects. We see the data portal as an engine that can drive new projects into and through Code for DC. We want to identify who could use the data present on the portal and how it would be most beneficial to them. Remember that Code for DC is built on the premise of doing work WITH stakeholders, not FOR them.
We have a Trello Board that contains current and future tasking. Ask one of the project leads to get you set up properly if you want to take on a task.
That is no problem at all! Everyone has to start somewhere. The project leads enjoy walking people through some of the analysis we've done before and are happy to show you how to get set up with tools like R so that you can get started. No question is too small.
This repository is an open-source project for data.codefordc.org, a CKAN data portal run by Code for DC.