Our Open Source Mission: Code, Data, and other Resources
DSaPP seeks to further the use of data science in policy research and practice, with the explicit and actionable aim of doing social good. A key part of our work is to develop custom solutions on a project-by-project basis, but many of these solutions have applicability beyond the use of an individual project. As much as possible, DSaPP focuses on research projects where tools or data can be easily scalable or generalized—such as our early warning systems for police departments and school districts or our inspection prioritization systems for cities and federal agencies. Beyond our aim of creating exportable systems, we also generate open data, open software, and know-how regarding the multitude of unexpected issues endemic to data science and real-world data sources.
Open access to our tools and best practices is a powerful way to contribute to our mission. By sharing what we have gleaned from our research and applications , we are empowering other people and organizations with the data science tools necessary to help tackle social challenges. As such, DSaPP is committed to making our tools open source and publicly available, as well as serving as a key voice in the discussions and debates that arise in the data science and policy arena.
Code Repository and Tool Summaries
- Our Github Repository
- Triage – An open source data science pipeline
- argcmdr – The thin argparse wrapper for quick, clear, and easy declaration of (hierarchical) console command interfaces via Python
- Legislative Influence Detector (LID) – Tracking influence in politics by locating matching rhetoric in near real-time