The University of Washington is planning to contract with a smartphone applications developer who will build an app for iPhone and Android to promote events, information resources, testing and research to help gay men avoid or manage the HIV virus and other sexually-transmitted diseases. Using Emerging Opportunities Grant funds of up to $15,000 from the UW Center For AIDS Research, UW Medicine will engage with a vendor who according to contracting documents will be asked to integrate the app with the Seattle Gay Scene (SGC) website’s newsfeed and calendar as well as their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Details of the plan are found in a Request For Proposals from vendors and an accompanying Q&A document.
Collaboration in Civic Spheres
Archive for the ‘Civic Apps’ Category
UW plans mobile app for gay men at risk of HIV
by Matt Rosenberg May 9th, 2012
Amplify accountability, technology to boost open government
by Matt Rosenberg March 10th, 2012
Don’t confuse government “open data” with open government, warn two graduate students from Princeton and Yale in a new paper. Harlan Yu and David Robinson say open data may actually improve government transparency but it also:
…might equally well refer to politically neutral public sector disclosures that are easy to reuse, (and) have nothing to do with public accountability. Today a regime can call itself “open” if it builds the right kind of web site — even if it does not become more accountable or transparent….Technology can make public information more adaptable, empowering third parties to contribute in exciting new ways across many aspects of civic life. But technological enhancements will not resolve debates about the best priorities for civic life, and enhancements to government services are no substitute for public accountability.
What open government needs to look like in the coming decade and beyond involves at least three core considerations: 1) inclusive dialog around potential changes to laws on open records and open meetings; 2) the melding of Internet and mobile technologies with ideals of government accountability; and 3) nourishment for a reformulated news and information ecosystem to fulfill the public interest with robust accountability-driven reporting, teaching and collaboration. We’re going to focus here mainly on 2), and a bit on 3).
Voluntary government disclosure is growing
Baseline voluntary government transparency utilizing the Internet has grown impressively. A wide array of meeting documents, special reports and data are routinely posted online by governments at all levels, in the U.S.
Congressional Facebook Hackathon report maps legislative transparency solutions; now what will Congress do?
by Matt Rosenberg February 13th, 2012
Imagine if instead of emailing or calling your U.S. Congressman or Senator with concerns about pending legislation, you could re-draft a portion of the bill text online, or endorse the revisions of another reader, knowing you’d be heard by decision-makers? In fact, there’s a very beta version of that called Madison, unveiled by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif) and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to harvest legislative text revisions from the public to privacy and transparency bills such as OPEN, PIPA, and earlier, the controversial SOPA or “Stop Online Piracy Act.” This open real-time bill markup tool is just one of the public tool concepts outlined in a recently-released report on the first Congressional Facebook Hackathon.
The bipartisan public-private forum was held in early December to explore how social media and technology can make the U.S. Congress more open, accessible and participatory to stakeholders. Below we’ll hit some highlights of the report. In addition to real-time public markup of legislation, they include an online Git repository of legislative text; crowd-sourced committee hearings; and a constituent casework tracking portal. Still unclear is what happens next, and to what extent the tools envisioned could be developed under common technical standards, and a similar look and feel for end-users, on a state-by-state basis.
Government as platform: the podcast
by Matt Rosenberg November 25th, 2011
The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU-FM at American University in Washington, D.C. recently featured an hour-long podcast about how governments are using emerging technology to engage stakeholders. Joining the host were: Bryan Sivak, Chief Innovation Officer for the State of Maryland and former Chief Technology Officer, District of Columbia; Tom Lee,
Director, Sunlight Labs; Alex Howard, Government 2.0 Correspondent,
O’Reilly Media; and Abhi Nemani, Director of Strategy and Communications at Code For America. A money quote, from Alex Howard:
One of the principles when you think about this open-data movement which is now worldwide is to help the data find the people who need it. And that often won’t mean going to a government website…In the ’90s, we talked about websites. Last decade, we started talking about Web services. So it’s not about going to a portal anymore. It’s about going to an application that might pull in data feeds from dozens of different places.
And the thing that government can do in releasing public sector data is then see that data be baked into applications that are useful and find citizens where they are actually using it. So mobile application which uses local health data, a transit application that uses transit data to help people to, you know, find where they need to go…Most citizens don’t want to see raw data, but they do want to know how to do things. And that’s where the Gov 2.0 movement can make a difference.
That’s just a snippet of a rich conversation. Listen to the whole show, even read the transcript.
Alex Howard, O'Reilly Media/Alex Howard
In coming months, here at Social Capital Review, the mother blog of the Public Data Ferret news knowledge base project, we’ll be developing a guide to Seattle-area civic apps including mobile, that use government data streams to help people meet their everyday information needs. Over time, it’s also going to be interesting to look at the “conversion rate” of government data sets posted online. Every big city, county and state government worth it’s salt, and numerous federal agencies, all have so-called “data sites” full of data sets, typically in formats that are accessible mainly to software developers.
The idea is that civic-minded geeks will come along, in many instances, and do the “social utility value add” by developing apps for mainstream audiences, such as ones we have here in the Seattle region which tell you when your bus is really going to arrive, or what the recent health inspection scores are for that Thai restaurant you’re about to enter. But how often does that value add – that packaging of the data into a useful, customizable tool – really happen? And are enough of the right data being released, or sought out?
(Note: the podcast transcriptionist incorrectly refers to the pioneering Baltimore government performance data program CitiStat as “city set” and a corollary Maryland program called StateStat as “state set.” (StateStat is well worth a look, BTW).
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Alex Howard’s Digiphile blog, and his Google+ page.
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“Making The Open Government Partnership Work”
by Matt Rosenberg November 1st, 2011
From our special report for the Open Knowledge Foundation of Cambridge, U.K.: “….the big questions that need to guide any open government visioning at national scale…fell into two broad areas. 1) Political culture. Are political corruption and cronyism an animating concern? How is the national government experienced, on the whole, by the populace?…2) Education, economy and technology. What is the state of education in the country – do scientific and secular views hold sway or not? Are higher ed and institutional R&D in a healthy state, and is there a burgeoning community of public-spirited software developers? Is the economy open or state-run? What are the particulars of technology adoption and access across class lines?”
MOVE maps digital stories on diet, smoking in King County
by Matt Rosenberg October 24th, 2011
Almost 70 digital stories on healthy diet, obesity prevention and smoking prevention from Seattle and King County residents are mapped online at a new web site called Mapping Our Voices For Equality (MOVE). Featured are digital personal narratives on healthy eating in challenging surroundings, teens learning healthy cooking, finding low-cost exercise opportunities, preventing smoking in shared public spaces, and related topics. The initiative stems from a program developed by the U.S. Centers For Disease Control (CDC).
An easy mapping interface at the site lets users scan the region, then click on locations and view digital stories and videos developed by community members with the assistance of local organizations including Sea Mar, Creative Narrations, Entre Hermanos, Puget SoundOff, International Community Health Services, the REACH Coalition and the government agency Public Health – Seattle and King County. Currently, 69 stories are mapped and more are coming according to organizers. (Stories are found on the map by clicking on large icons and small multi-colored dot clusters which reveal more icons; also, all are indexed at the site’s “stories” page.)
In the Kitchen of FEEST from Mapping Voices on Vimeo.
MOVE arises from a federally-funded campaign called Communities Putting Prevention To Work (CPPW) originated by the CDC which enlists grassroots resources to develop and spread messages counteracting obesity and smoking. Both are major health risks in lower-income neighborhoods. The MOVE site also includes resources for learning, action, and developing new stories.
In a statement, MOVE Project Manager Natasha Freidus said that through the Web site of mapped stories local residents “have become more involved in creating positive changes for their communities while learning new technologies.” Added Dr. David Fleming, Director and Health Officer for Public Health – Seattle & King County, “MOVE provides a forum for voices from the community as well as a visually interesting way to capture the exciting changes that are happening in King County” around public health awareness and community engagement. The map has a customizable “changes” view that lets users explore the policy changes that have occurred in King County on healthy eating and fighting obesity and smoking as a result of CPPW’s work.
MOVE has scheduled three community forums this autumn to highlight involvement in obesity and smoking prevention awareness and action. Residents will present the MOVE story map and digital stories, along with their policy priorities, to panels of elected officials. The first of the three events is “International District on the MOVE” Friday October 28 at Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific-American Experience, 719 S. King Street, Seattle. It will include neighborhood tours, free entry to the “From Fields to Family” exhibit at 3 p.m. and a community forum at 4 p.m.
Editor’s note: Public Data Ferret or its “mother blog” site Social Capital Review periodically cover community group or non-profit news. Contact matt(at)publiceyenorthwest(dot)org.
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Politiwidgets lets you embed data on U.S. officeholders
by Matt Rosenberg October 3rd, 2011
Whether you write online about public affairs or are just doing some due diligence on an officeholder, Politiwidgets is a government transparency toolset worth exploring. Developed by technologists at the non-profit Sunlight Foundation in Washington, D.C., Politiwidgets let you embed easy-to-read graphics of performance and contextual data on members of the U.S. Congress and Senate into online articles, blog posts or social media entries. The data are all drawn from first-rate cited sources, to which links are provided.
Widgets can be customized to different sizes/Poliwidgets
At Politiwidgets, each member of Congress or the Senate has their own page with a range of data in several categories. Here are the Politiwidgets main pages of all Washington state U.S. Representatives and Senators. The first feature is their “business card” which includes contact information, plus a link to their Web site and social media accounts. Getting into the data, you can see how many bills a legislator has sponsored versus how many of those have been enacted, and how those figures compare to the average for legislators in their chamber. You can also review and compare the records of legislators on how many earmarks – appropriations which are directed to specific recipients – they have have won approval of, again versus the average for legislators in their chamber.
Other legislator data at Politiwidgets includes voting records, campaign contributions, top contributors, interest group ratings, top U.S. government contractors in their district, and district map.
I’ll demo Poliwidgets by showing the most recent full-year earmarks data for each member of the Washington state delegation. U.S. Rep. Jamie Herrera (R-3) isn’t included because she was just elected last November, and there’s no data reported for her yet in that category at Politiwidgets. I’ve used the earmarks widget for U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (D-9) (above) to show a different size option than those below and to illustrate that with a bit of elementary code you can embed the widgets neatly in text, and add a caption.
The Sunlight Foundation invites active bloggers on public policy and politics who’ve used Politiwidgets to share their feedback in an online survey.
Washington’s “F” In Online Transparency: Bum Rap?
by Matt Rosenberg March 28th, 2011
Slipping by virtually unnoticed during the recent flurry of news, analysis and events on open government, tied to the annual “Sunshine Week” earlier this month, was the “F” grade given to Washington state in a 50-state transparency Web site report card issued by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). (Click on any state for its assessment). Is the grade a fair one? Arguably not, and we’ll discuss why in a moment. Yet there’s also some legitimacy to U.S. PIRG’s hyper-focused approach of evaluating each state based on just one central spending transparency site.