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Project Definition

Create a comprehensive, searchable index of all civic tech open source software projects around the world.

Introduction To The Project

What is The Civic Tech Index? Simply put, it’s a movement to index every useful Civic Tech Open Source project.

Why do it? People all over the world working in civic tech need a way to find open source projects to model, connect with and learn from.

Hasn't it been done already?!! There have been many attempts to make a searchable registry of these projects. But until now, it has been impossible to create an authoritative source, because it always required a lot of data entry on the part of each project and marketing by the registry owner.

So how is this different? We now have a path that :

• Only takes 1 min or less per project to join the index

• Requires no coding skill

• And the index is owned by all who contribute to it

What are our guiding objectives?

1. To create a framework that makes it easy for any civic creator to tag and submit their project to the index in 2 mins or less.
2. To create a user friendly website making it easy for anyone to search the index and find code for projects that are ready for iteration and customization.
3. To demonstrate the power of the index and and build a solution to support civic tech organizations worldwide

Joining the Civic Tech Index Team

Introduction

Welcome to the Civic Tech Index team! This guide will help get you up to speed on what you need to know to get started as a project team member.

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Let's go!

If you have not read the Hack For LA Guide for New Volunteers, please do so.

1. Join the #civic-tech-index slack channel and introduce yourself.
2. Slack our PM, Bonnie, with your email address.
3. Accept your Google Drive invite to access the shared folder.
4. Add yourself to the Team Roster. Then, Slack our PM with "Added to Roster".
5. Read Introduction to the Project.

Get acquainted with accessibility:

Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that all websites be accessible to people with disabilities. The World Wide Web (W3C) Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA function as the current legal standard for website accessibility. Read The Toolkit: https://www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/chap5toolkit.htm

Team

Name	Role
Bonnie Wolfe	Technical Project Manager
Chali Prasertsri	UX Lead
Gwendolyn Snapp	Visual Designer
Abhishek Chhabra	Full Stack Developer, Lead Back End
Nandana Rao	Full Stack Developer
Jonathan Sachsman	Product Manager

Resources

1. Design Proposal
2. A list of Civic Tech Organizations worldwide
3. Wireframes

Glossary:

Term	Alternate terms	Official Link	Description
Github Organization	org	*
Github Repository	repo	Github Help
Topic Tags	tags	*
Index			A common method for keeping track of data so that it can be accessed quickly. Like an index in a book, it is a list in which each entry contains the name of the item and its location. However, computer-based indexes may point to a physical location on a disk or to a logical location that points elsewhere to the actual location.
Open source	OS	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source	from Wikipedia: Open source products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. It most commonly refers to the open-source model, in which open-source software or other products are released under an open-source license as part of the open-source-software movement. Use of the term originated with software, but has expanded beyond the software sector to cover other open content and forms of open collaboration.
Civic Tech		https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_technology	from Wikipedia: Civic technology, or civic tech, enhances the relationship between the people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and communications technology supporting government with software built by community-led teams of volunteers, nonprofits, consultants, and private companies as well as embedded tech teams working within government.
Foss		https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software	from Wikipedia: Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software.That is, anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software.[3] This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the source code is usually hidden from the users. FOSS maintains the software user's civil liberty rights (see the Four Essential Freedoms, below). Other benefits of using FOSS can include decreased software costs, increased security and stability (especially in regard to malware), protecting privacy, education, and giving users more control over their own hardware. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux and descendants of BSD are widely utilized today, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones (e.g., Android), and other devices. Free-software licenses and open-source licenses are used by many software packages. The free-software movement and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread production and adoption of FOSS.