GitHub for Government Recap

As the definition of “developer” has grown and expanded, GitHub has become a place where anyone can do simple collaboration. It’s a free social network that tracks changes to any data, not just code, where stakeholders and developers can work on the same data simultaneously.

Project Open Data, a cross-agency initiative developed by the White House, that looks at how to manage information as an asset in the 21st century, is powered by GitHub. Policy decisions have been made by people working in open data in government based on these discussions. They can see what’s happening on both sides: policy & code all in one place.

Never tried GitHub? Noah Kunin, from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, walked us through the platform, including some government-specific resources.

Here are some of the highlights from the recent DigitalGov University webinar:

• How to create a new issue & reopen old issues
• How to assign people
• How to search & filter for issues
• How to submit a pull request
• How to find the history of changes made to the data

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RCto1Ss6Uk]

And don’t forget to check out the Best Practices in GitHub for Government.