Knight News Challenge Application for Expense Visualizer Project
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Jennifer Bell
Dec 10, 2009, 6:43:34 PM12/10/09
to VisibleGovernment Discuss
Hello all,
I was going to submit an application to the knight news challenge for
VG's expense visualizer project. The project, a collaboration with
the Montreal software company FFunction (formerly Datalicious Canada)
has been on slow burn for the last year, and it would be nice to get
some funding to finish it up.
A draft application below. Sebastien at FFunction did a supplemental
document for the application here, which includes screenshots from the
current prototype:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://groups.google.com/group/visiblegovernment_expensedb/web/expensevisualizer-ffunction-final.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHFVqELxQtq09_LPkWLenqUivwMdg
Feedback and comments welcome. The submission is due on the 15th, so
I was hoping to get all material done on the weekend.
Jennifer
----------------------------
Describe your project (1800 characters remaining):
As was recently demonstrated in the U.K, personal expense scandals
have the power to destroy political careers, and even bring down
governments. The best way to prevent these types of scandals and
maintain public trust is full, immediate disclosure of expense
spending.
Since 2004, employees of Canadian federal departments have been
required by law to publish their personal expense records on the
internet on a quarterly basis. The information, typically disclosed
in HMTL table format per quarter per employee, is hard to browse, and
often contains undetected errors. Further, these expense records are
spread across over 100 different departmental websites, making it
difficult to compare spending between departments.
By systematically collecting this large amount of information and
providing visualizations of the data, we’ve created a powerful tool
for monitoring and comparing changes in spending within and across
departments. Our interactive visualizer allows users to quickly
detect patterns and anomalies, and share their findings. Government
employees can use the visualizations to audit their own spending, and
that of subordinates, to see how they compare with other employees and
departments. Citizens and journalists can use the visualizations to
spot unusual spending, and be re-assured that their governments are
spending within budget and guidelines.
Will your project improve the way news and information are delivered
to geographic communities? (750 characters remaining):
Our project provides an easy, intuitive interface for government
employees and citizens to interact with government expense spending
data to discover trends and new insights. The application provides
sharable links and embeddable views to reproduce specific findings,
allowing discoveries to be shared with other users and discussed on
our site or elsewhere in blogs or newsgroups. Issues raised on our
forum will follow a moderated escalation process for bringing citizen
concerns to government ombudsmen.
The focus of our project is the Canadian federal government, targeting
a national community, as this government body has the most complete
publicly available expense spending data set in North America.
(TBD??) Once demonstrated, the open source visualization software
developed can be used at provincial and municipal levels within
Canada, and worldwide.
What experience do you or your organization have to successfully
develop this project? (1600 characters remaining):
This project is a collaboration between the non-profit
VisibleGovernment.ca and the Montreal visualization company FFunction.
VisibleGovernment.ca
VisibleGovernment.ca is a non-profit whose mission is to promote
online tools for government transparency in Canada. Incorporated in
2008, VisibleGovernment.ca maintains several open source open
government applications, including:
- Disclosed.ca: Collects Canadian federal government contract
disclosure records from over 70 different department websites into a
single database, making them easily searchable.
- FixMyStreet.ca: Allows citizens to file and track neighbourhood
issues in 7 different Canadian cities.
- IBelieveInOpen.ca: Tracked voter support and collected pledges from
MP candidates for 5 aspects of government transparency in the 2008
Canadian federal election.
FFunction
FFunction is a young software company based in Montréal, Canada. Our
mission is to help organizations and individuals make the best use of
the vast amount of data available today. We blend cutting-edge Web
technologies and graphic design to create interactive visual tools
that help people extract maximum value from very large data sets.
I was going to submit an application to the knight news challenge for
VG's expense visualizer project. The project, a collaboration with
the Montreal software company FFunction (formerly Datalicious Canada)
has been on slow burn for the last year, and it would be nice to get
some funding to finish it up.
A draft application below. Sebastien at FFunction did a supplemental
document for the application here, which includes screenshots from the
current prototype:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://groups.google.com/group/visiblegovernment_expensedb/web/expensevisualizer-ffunction-final.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHFVqELxQtq09_LPkWLenqUivwMdg
Feedback and comments welcome. The submission is due on the 15th, so
I was hoping to get all material done on the weekend.
Jennifer
----------------------------
Describe your project (1800 characters remaining):
As was recently demonstrated in the U.K, personal expense scandals
have the power to destroy political careers, and even bring down
governments. The best way to prevent these types of scandals and
maintain public trust is full, immediate disclosure of expense
spending.
Since 2004, employees of Canadian federal departments have been
required by law to publish their personal expense records on the
internet on a quarterly basis. The information, typically disclosed
in HMTL table format per quarter per employee, is hard to browse, and
often contains undetected errors. Further, these expense records are
spread across over 100 different departmental websites, making it
difficult to compare spending between departments.
By systematically collecting this large amount of information and
providing visualizations of the data, we’ve created a powerful tool
for monitoring and comparing changes in spending within and across
departments. Our interactive visualizer allows users to quickly
detect patterns and anomalies, and share their findings. Government
employees can use the visualizations to audit their own spending, and
that of subordinates, to see how they compare with other employees and
departments. Citizens and journalists can use the visualizations to
spot unusual spending, and be re-assured that their governments are
spending within budget and guidelines.
Will your project improve the way news and information are delivered
to geographic communities? (750 characters remaining):
Our project provides an easy, intuitive interface for government
employees and citizens to interact with government expense spending
data to discover trends and new insights. The application provides
sharable links and embeddable views to reproduce specific findings,
allowing discoveries to be shared with other users and discussed on
our site or elsewhere in blogs or newsgroups. Issues raised on our
forum will follow a moderated escalation process for bringing citizen
concerns to government ombudsmen.
The focus of our project is the Canadian federal government, targeting
a national community, as this government body has the most complete
publicly available expense spending data set in North America.
(TBD??) Once demonstrated, the open source visualization software
developed can be used at provincial and municipal levels within
Canada, and worldwide.
What experience do you or your organization have to successfully
develop this project? (1600 characters remaining):
This project is a collaboration between the non-profit
VisibleGovernment.ca and the Montreal visualization company FFunction.
VisibleGovernment.ca
VisibleGovernment.ca is a non-profit whose mission is to promote
online tools for government transparency in Canada. Incorporated in
2008, VisibleGovernment.ca maintains several open source open
government applications, including:
- Disclosed.ca: Collects Canadian federal government contract
disclosure records from over 70 different department websites into a
single database, making them easily searchable.
- FixMyStreet.ca: Allows citizens to file and track neighbourhood
issues in 7 different Canadian cities.
- IBelieveInOpen.ca: Tracked voter support and collected pledges from
MP candidates for 5 aspects of government transparency in the 2008
Canadian federal election.
FFunction
FFunction is a young software company based in Montréal, Canada. Our
mission is to help organizations and individuals make the best use of
the vast amount of data available today. We blend cutting-edge Web
technologies and graphic design to create interactive visual tools
that help people extract maximum value from very large data sets.
Jennifer Bell
Jan 9, 2010, 4:05:39 PM1/9/10
to VisibleGovernment Discuss
An update: I've been invited to submit more information on the expense
visualizer to the Knight News Challenge. Going by the metrics from
last year, that means it's in the top 11% of submissions. The
additional info is due at the end of the month, with the next round of
judging ending Feb. 15th.
visualizer to the Knight News Challenge. Going by the metrics from
last year, that means it's in the top 11% of submissions. The
additional info is due at the end of the month, with the next round of
judging ending Feb. 15th.
Jennifer
On Dec 10 2009, 5:43 pm, Jennifer Bell <visiblegovernm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I was going to submit an application to the knight news challenge for
> VG's expense visualizer project. The project, a collaboration with
> the Montreal software company FFunction (formerly Datalicious Canada)
> has been on slow burn for the last year, and it would be nice to get
> some funding to finish it up.
>
> A draft application below. Sebastien at FFunction did a supplemental
> document for the application here, which includes screenshots from the
> current prototype:
>
> http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://groups.google.com/group/visib...
Michael Allan
Jan 10, 2010, 1:19:59 PM1/10/10
to VisibleGovernment Discuss
Hey Jennifer,
Congratulations on making the short list.
Good luck!
--
Michael Allan
Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/
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