© Jordan Kasper

Anyone Can be a #CivicTech Hero

A woman holding the Earth with a couple things orbiting them

* Whether you realize it or not, you benefit from government technology
* But Government tech struggles to keep up with industry, in large people because of a lack of talent
* Simple fact is: tech is created by the people who show up
* We need smart people like all of you get involved
* Share my journey with a recent example, and talk about how you can be a #civictech hero

Who am I?

A stuffed tiger

Sr Advisor, Office of the CIO,
Department of Homeland Security

* SW engineer
* Startups, big companies, lots of community engagement: dev advocate, code school instructor, conf speaking, usergroup organizing
* Leaving a role and a friend talked to me about US Digital Service
* It was a natural extension from my community focus
* I was driven by the impact my work could have on a broader demographic

Civic Tech
in 3 Easy Steps

Identify a problem
Find a dataset or API
Build an MVP

* I'd like to tell you a story of one recent civic tech journey I took, and how you can do so in 3 easy steps
1. Problem doesn't have to be big and flashy, just find a user and ask about pain points
2. We'll talk about open data and APIs, and where you can find them
3. Build one, small thing. Put it out there, get someone using it, collect feedback, repeat!

A Real World Example

A woman holds a large print of mountains with a large board behind her with wireframes of a website

* I've worked with a lot of government tech, but this story isn't about that
* This story is about solving one group's problem with open source data and technology

* Important site for public engagement with the government, but also for administrative law professionals
* Allows anyone to see proposed rules & regulations from gov agencies, and allows them to comment on proposals
* The government is required to read those comments when considering rule changes

The Old Regulations.gov

A screenshot of the old version of the regulations.gov website

* Image from the "WayBack" machine at archive.org from January 2021
* Site was created in 2003 - and uses Flash
* Just to reiterate, this screenshot was from January 2021
* For reference, Flash reached EOL on December 31, 2020 and Adobe ceased all support for it at that time

The New Regulations.gov

A screenshot of the latest version of the regulations.gov website

* Beta tested in late 2020 and fully live in February 2021
* New site looks nice, but does not have full functionality of old site
* It was clear they had not done sufficient (or any) direct user research
* But this isn't a rage session on regulations.gov or GSA
* General Services Administration (or GSA) is working to make it better

1. Identify a problem

A woman kicking a component of a website while scratching her head

* I knew someone who was complaining about this site and its poor functionality
* I listened, asked questions, and asked what would make things better
* (go back one slide) One issue was that many lawyers copy & paste a "docket ID" from the Federal Register into regulations.goc
* this copied ID has a special character in it that regulations.gov doesn't recognize, meaning the search fails
* This is an easy fix: we know what special character it is, so we just remove it before performing a search
* Then, I needed to do some investigation...

A computer with data files falling into it from a conveyor belt

2. Find a dataset or API

* Applications run on data. And for this project, I couldn't create or collect the data myself
* After some light poking around the new regulations.gov, I found that all of their data is available on api.data.gov

Open Source
Government Data

data.usgs.gov
healthdata.gov
data.gov

* US Geological Survey has hundreds of datasets on everything from (A)bandoned mines to (Z)inc deposit concentrations
* If you need data on health and medical issues you have healthdata.gov
* data.gov hosts thousands of open datasets and is updated regularly; for example, they have 438 datasets on climate!
* Many agencies have their own open data sites, but also list their data on data.gov

Open Source Data at DHS

Data Inventory Program
Open Sourcing Data on data.gov
Open Data Standards and Data Stewardship
dhs.gov/data

* DIP is enterprise catalog of data assets (accurate, complete, timely, useful)
* Mandated by "OPEN Government Data Act" (and other things)
* Also working to categorize that data (public? PII? Where is it stored? Contacts for breaches?)
* Also allows us to open data to the public... (data.gov)
* ...but we need to do so in a standardized way.

Data is great, but what about APIs?

A woman searches for the right data set

api.data.gov

A phone and a tablet both connect to another block representing the data

* 17 government organizations host their APIs through here, including regulations.gov!
* GSA regs.gov API is realtively modern: uses HTTP Methods, authentication keys, and mostly JSON
* I had identified a problem, I found the data to solve that problem, now I needed to do something about it

Three people at three laptops discussing their work

3. Build an MVP

* I listened to my users, but now I needed to build something and validate that solution with my users
* My first step was to play with the API and data to see how I can use it to solve my user's problem

Early Pain Points

A woman considers some papers up on a board while holding an alternate paper option in her hand

API key rate limits

Poor data architecture and API design

Lack of (good) documentation

* API rate limit of 1000 per hour, but there's no commercial option, no paid plans!
* API limit wouldn't be as much of an issue except that the data architecture is poor
* Specifically, each comment requires an individual API request, and many proposed regulations can have tens of thousands of comments
* With many of these APIs the documentation is not great (some have swagger docs, not all)

My Solution

Step 1: Have user's register for an API key

User requests data
Check the cache
Get data from API
Cache data (30 days)

Step 1. ask user to register on api.data.gov and trust us with their key
* User's enter docket ID, or specific "document" ID
* We cache data from API, so all users benefit
* If data is not cached, use user's API key to hit API
* Have to make multiple calls for most requests (get all comments), which we do in batches due to second rate limit (req/s)
* Cache data 30 days, data doesn't really change

What about the UI?

A group of people climb around a web site while it is being built

* Now that I have the data retrieval figured out, what about the user experience?

For our UI framework, we want something...

open source
with a good base of functionality
accessible and well tested
maintained by a trusted organization
with good development velocity

The U.S. Web Design System logo U.S. Web Design System, maintained by GSA github.com/uswds

* lots of reusable components, and theme-able
* Especially good for gov-adjacent work, this fits in nicely

A man shows off a web page

A screenshot of the home page of fedgovregs.org once logged in

A screenshot of some documents within a docket on fedgovregs.org

A screenshot of the comments on a document on fedgovregs.org

A woman walks, ready to answer any question

How can you become a #CivicTech hero?

Solve a problem.

Find a non-profit that needs help,
or just talk to your friends!

You don't have to solve all of the world's problems.

Start small!

Contribute to government OSS.

The U.S. Web Design System logo U.S. Web Design System

The code.gov logo
https://code.gov

* USWDS accepts public contributions through Pull Requests
* code.gov collects data on open source projects and GitHub organizations from all around the federal government

Raise your voice.

Visit regulations.gov and look for opportunities to voice your expert opinion on technical policies!

* Can search regulations.gov for topics you're interested in
* DoL data RFI is on how to design and implement an open data policy
* What protocols or data formats should they use? Speak up!

Join up!

U.S. Digital Service (OMB)
U.S. Digital Response (non-profit)
TechCongress
U.S. Digital Corps (GSA)
CivicTech Job Board
18F (GSA)
Come talk to me!

Anyone Can be a #CivicTech Hero

Slides: jordankasper.com/civictech

FedGovRegs code:
github.com/jakerella/usgov-regs

Read the letter from Democracy Forward to GSA about regulaltions.gov.

unDraw

Anyone Can be a #CivicTech Hero