Submission process for the Open Data Project Gallery

As part of our larger redesign of our website and project gallery, we’ve created a new process for assessing the submissions we receive. While we have always had a submission form for the gallery, we haven’t had a formal procedure for adding new projects until now. 

Firstly, we’ve set a regular review schedule: we will review submissions quarterly (in February, May, August, and November), so that you will hear about your submission within a few months of submitting it. This will allow us to keep the gallery fresh, while not committing to a schedule we can’t keep up.

We’ve also created a rubric to help guide our assessment of submissions. Projects don’t have to meet every single piece of criteria outlined below (except for the first one), but strong submissions will meet at least one in each category. We will be refining this rubric as we use it more, but currently this is what it looks like.

Link to NYC Open Data (required)

• Does the project name and/or link to NYC Open Data somewhere? This can include linking to the dataset(s) used as a source. 

Value added

• Does this project make it easier to use/understand the dataset? 
• Does it teach or inspire users about what they can do with the data?
• Is this project unique or distinct from other projects already included in the gallery? 

Topic/method

• Is the topic/method explored novel or interesting? 
• Is it a good example of civic engagement?
• Does the project answer the question it sets out to explore?

Design/UX

• Does it have a compelling and navigable design?

Tools

• Does this project demonstrate the use of readily available tools? 
• If a project uses AI, did the creator interpret or modify the outputs themself? 

Openness 

• Is the project itself available as a free tool others can easily utilize?
• If the project was built using code, is the source code available open access and is it understandable? 

Narrative

• Does the narrative sufficiently frame the goals of the work?
• Does the process section explain how it was built?