Month: November 2014

Access Gaps Session at Chicago School of Data Days

Sonja Marziano

Note: During Chicago School of Data Days, Smart Chicago hired a corps of documenters to take notes, write, photograph, and record our conference sessions. We want to feature some of our documenter’s writing in a series of blog posts. Our first post is from Genevieve Nielsen who wrote about the Access Gaps Session from the first day of Chicago School of Data Days. You can also watch the video of the session here.

9 19 14 Access Gap Session (6)

As the Chicago School of Data evolves, the accessibility of reliable data remains a challenge to its growth. In fact, Kathy Pettit of the Urban Institute began the conference by mentioning that looking for data often feels like “looking for a needle in a haystack.” The Chicago School of Data Conference began with three sessions under the heading of “Gaps” to discuss how organizations are currently using data and how to improve accessibility.

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Key Takeaways and Raw Responses to Chicago School of Data Census Form

Smart Chicago

As part of our post- Chicago School of Data Days work, we are doing lots of analysis of the data we’ve collected and the artifacts we created together.

One key dataset, especially for the consideration of gaps in data provision and skills development, are the answers to the census form we’ve been working on for months. We’ve got 246 responses to date. Here they are, with identifying information and end-matter (re: how they want to be contacted, participation in the project, etc.) removed.

Untitled

Takeaways

The census form was a key part of the Chicago School of Data project and the conference.  We took responses from this survey to better understand how data was used by organizations and responded by creating themes that defined the conference sessions and discussions.

Here are the themes that we came to:

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Chicago launches a new PlowTracker

Christopher Whitaker

Chicago has seen it’s first snow flurries – which can only mean one thing…the return of Chicago’s PlowTracker! This year, it’s been updated with new features to help residents find where the plows are.

A line of snow plows barricades Roosevelt Road

In previous iterations, the plow tracker showed one icon regardless of the direction it’s moving. Now, the icons have been updated to indicated the direction of the plow. The map itself is also bigger and displays snowfall readings for the current storm.

The Plow Tracker can be found here and will be activated during major snow events.

Chicagoflushots.org keeps going viral

Christopher Whitaker

Last week, Socrata created another version of Tom Kompare’s Chicago flu shot app that runs on the Socrata API. Developed in partnership with the Chicago Department of Public Health, the app is hosted on Smart Chicago’s servers. (A service we offer to any civic app developer in Chicago.)

"Get a Flu Shot" Sign on the Door of 37th Ward Alderman Emma Mitts' Ward Office

When the Kompare first launched the Flu Shot App, it quickly spread to several other cities. Because Kompare’s app utilized Google Fusion Tables – a free tool that lets apps tap manipulate data – it was easy for cities that didn’t have a data portal yet to take advantage of the app.

With the Socrata release, any city that’s released their flu shot information onto their Socrata data portal can easily create their own flu shot app. The open source repository was recently used to launch a flu shot finder in Raleigh, North Carolina in partnership with the local Code for America Brigade.

Here’s an incomplete list of news stories covering the app:

  • Online Tool Maps Flu Shot Locations – NBC Chicago – 10/29/2012
  • City of Chicago adopts flu shot app built by civic hackers – Code for America – 11/06/2012
  • Need a Free Flu Shot? Chicago Has an App For That! – Blackline Review – 11/7/2012
  • Civic app for finding flu shots goes viral – GovFresh – 1/17/2013
  • How Open Source Civic Technology Helped Flu Vaccinations Go Viral – TechPresident – 1/15/2012 (Paywall)
  • Flu Apps Spreads – Code for America – 1/17/2012
  • Spread the Code to combat the flu – digital.cityofchicago.org – 1/26/2013

You can get the whole scoop on Socrata’s website here.