
Civic Apps Competition Handbook
A Guide to Planning, Organizing, and Troubleshooting
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Release Date: September 2012
Pages: 78
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Organize a Civic Apps Competition (CAC) in your city. This practical guide provides best practices for each phase of the process, based largely on the authors’ firsthand experience planning and managing Apps for Metro Chicago (A4MC). You’ll learn everything from setting goals and creating a budget to running the competition and measuring the outcome.
CACs provide software programmers with platforms for building effective apps, using open government data as a way to foster community involvement and make government more transparent. This handbook helps you address serious questions about the process and shows you what’s required for making your competition successful.
- Gain insights from the authors’ survey of 15 CACs in the US and Canada
- Get guidelines for establishing specific goals, and evaluate results with reliable metrics
- Understand major costs involved and build a budget around partners and sponsors
- Determine participation incentives, prize categories, and judging
- Avoid unstructured data sets by being selective when choosing public datasets
- Learn how the authors handled roadblocks during the A4MC competition
- Discover ways to sustain lasting community interest once the CAC is over
Table of Contents
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Chapter 1 The Pursuit of Accountability, Efficiency, and Economic Growth
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History of Apps Contests
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Next Chapter: What CACs Create
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Chapter 2 Benefits of Civic Apps Competitions
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Case Study
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What Civic Apps Competitions Achieve
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Next Chapter: Goals and Metrics
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Chapter 3 Identifying Goals and Metrics for Your Apps Competition
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Translating Benefits into Goals and Metrics
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Identifying Your Competition’s Ideal Goals and Metrics of Success
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Table of Robust Goals and Metrics
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Next Chapter: Building Your Budget
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Chapter 4 Building Your CAC Budget
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Partners
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The Data
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Cash Prizes
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Competition Web Platform
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Administration
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Technical Support
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Competition Length
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Defraying Costs
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Next Chapter: Data Resources
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Chapter 5 Surveying Your Data Resources
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Structured Versus Unstructured Data
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Data Content
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Documentation
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Next Chapter: Design
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Chapter 6 Designing Your CAC
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Participation Incentives
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Prize Categories
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Judging Criteria
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Judging Process
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Judge Selection
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Type of Eligible Apps: Mobile, Web, Tablet
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Participation Drivers: Events and Communications
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Next Chapter: Common Roadblocks
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Chapter 7 Common Roadblocks
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Who Owns the App After the Competition Is Over?
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Next Chapter: The Long Game
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Chapter 8 Building on Success
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Engaging in Conversation
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Participating in Events
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Continuing to Build Apps
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Closing Thoughts
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