Today I attended the launch event ADA 25 Chicago, a network of civic partners who have come together to commemorate and advance a civil rights milestone— the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities ACT (ADA).
Smart Chicago is a technology partner in ADA 25 Chicago and will be working with them throughout the year.
Here’s the complete set of images:
Today, Smart Chicago is launching a new feature on the Chicago Early Learning portal that will help parents kick off the process of enrollment. The Chicago Early Learning portal has been a resource for parents to find early learning programs near their home or work. Parents are able to compare programs side-by-side to select the best option for their child. With the new Compare & Contact Feature, parents will be able to contact multiple locations they are interested in learning more about.
This is one part of our Phase 3 work, where we wanted to help facilitate the enrollment process. While parents were able to compare locations before, the goal now is to drive more parents to kick off communication with locations of their choosing. We did this in a couple of ways:
Parents then can compare locations side-by-side and click “Contact.” They will reach a form that gives the locations some information about themselves and their children’s ages. Providers at those locations receive these forms and reach out to parents to provide additional information about their programs and enrollment.
We are hoping to make this an effective process for both parents and the providers at the locations. Therefore, we will continue to gather feedback and implement changes to make this process better. We will conduct Civic User Testing Group (CUTGroup) tests to speak directly with parents and see how we can make the portal fit their needs better. We will also continue to collaborate with our partners to understand the enrollment process better and create a portal and process that reflects enrollment.
Here are other additions to our Phase 3 work that will be coming up next:
At this week’s OpenGov Hack Night, the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council came and spoke about their work and how they use data to advise policymakers.
SPAC was created to collect, analyze and present data from all relevant sources to more accurately determine the consequences of sentencing policy decisions and to review the effectiveness and efficiency of current sentencing policies and practices. They’re a four person team split between Chicago and Springfield that advises the Illinois Legislature on how certain laws will impact prison populations.
The criminal justice system is complicated – any change in the law could affect the prison population and the cost to the state. SPAC uses a variety of data sources to analyze the effects of new laws and let Springfield know what’s working and what’s not. While you can FOIA SPAC, SPAC doesn’t actually own any of the data that it uses – rather it consumes data from other agencies.
Here’s Research Director Nate Inglis Steinfeld introducing SPAC.
You can see SPAC’s full slide deck below. If you’d like to get involved in using technology to aid the efforts in criminal justice reform, you should check out the Safety and Justice Breakout Group at OpenGov Hack Night.
Since October 2013, civic tech pioneer, Chicago web developer, and good friend Scott Robbin has been working with Smart Chicago as our lead developer. If you have worked at all with us since then, you have benefitted from his work. Let’s take a look:
This is a ton of work. But at Smart Chicago, we’re not all about the technology. Scott has been a patient mentor for developers, teaching them how to use our resources, advising them on how to build their sites. He’s helped us work with non-technical consultants to keep them on the path to being bona-fide Web project managers. And he’s generally shared his vast knowledge in a patented, gentle, learned way. Scott Robbin is a treasure.
On a personal note, I’ve known Scott for many years, and we’ve worked on a volunteer basis on all sorts of projects. Most recently, we worked together to scrape, display, and make available for download every Comment on FCC Filing 14-28, Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet. We work. All we care about is work.
All hail Scott Robbin.
Through the Experimental Modes project, I’ve been researching and analyzing methods for community-controlled civic tech. These “modes” of civic engagement in civic tech were distilled through a process of evaluation, research, and interviews.
Now, we’re inviting you to tell your own story as part of our Civic Tech Case Study Sprint. This documentation project (inspired by bookprints and Beautiful Trouble) was set in motion at our practitioner convening last Saturday.
In the afternoon, I led an exercise on storytelling and documentation. After presenting on the 5 Modes of Civic Engagement in Civic Tech, we discussed additional strategies and tactics used in our work. We also discussed this sprint and what we, as practitioners, would like to see in documentation of our work, and adjusted the form based on based on this feedback.
Digging into documentation and civic tech at the Experimental Modes Convening on April 4, 2015.
The case studies produced as part of this exercise will be published on the Smart Chicago website and will be spread as far and wide as we can. To contribute to the sprint, all you have to do is fill out this form. We are open to examples from within the United States as well as abroad and don’t care whether the examples are 10 years or 10 minutes old.
After completing your DIY Case Study, you will get a copy of your submission immediately by email. Everything Smart Chicago publishes is Creative Commons 4.0.
Once we have all of the case studies in from everyone who attended our convening, I will compile of the responses into a document that reviews quantitative info (number of times a particular mode was used, prevalence of specific tactics, etc.) along with an analysis of trends & insights from your narratives. (The Smart Chicago CUTGroup Final Reports are good examples of this type of analysis.)
Submit your case study before Sunday, April 19, 2015 to be included in this report. All of these outputs, including the raw form data (example) will be housed shared on the Experimental Modes project page, where we’ll also post and link to the case studies as individual PDFs.
Questions? Comments? . Otherwise, get cracking!
Smart Chicago is partnering with United Cerebral Palsy’s Life Labs to host their 2015 Innovation Labs on May 19 & 20 at the Microsoft Technology Center here in Chicago. United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) educates, advocates and provides support services to ensure a life without limits for people with a spectrum of disabilities. Here’s how UCP describes the event:
Join together with designers, makers, manufacturers and assistive product aficionados among others at Innovation Lab for a competitive, collaborative and undeniably unique experience!
Hear from leading makers and hackers and people with and without disabilities about the principles of Universal Design actually prototype new products that are more accessible, attractive and easier to use for people with all levels of ability.
This intense event will focus on accessibility and usability in product design and rapid prototyping with lightning talks from notable speakers, coaching and mentoring from the experts, teamwork and product demonstrations and finally, prizes for the top ideas!
Smart Chicago is co-hosting this event as part of our commitment to ADA 25 Chicago, an effort to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2015. We work for access to technology for all, and the accessibility movement has been one of the most powerful forces for inclusion.
Register now and follow along with the planning on Twitter.
