Data & Visualizations

Most Drupal developers are familiar with the Nodequeue module.

It gives developers the ability to set up groups of nodes, called "queues". Clients can add nodes to these groups, and use the drag-n-drop interface to order the nodes as desired. It gives clients a lot more control over which items should appear on certain parts of the site.

Data is the new black. These days everyone is releasing it, visualizing it, aggregating it, and mashing it up. And for good reason. Data is so much more than a stack of numbers or a server filled with client outputs. It can justify the work that your organization is doing, help others understand why it is critical, and offer exciting new ways to motivate others to help solve the problems your organization is working on.

One of our goals at Forum One is to help our clients achieve a higher level of collaboration. The effective exchange of knowledge is one of the hurdles separating a good organization (or open-source project) from a great one.

This is a cross-post of an article written for the NTEN newsletter and blog.

Policy-oriented organizations have long produced dizzying amounts of statistical content. In the past, rows and rows of data would die a quick death in thick policy reports or inscrutable spreadsheets. Don't let your data fall victim!

A few days ago, Dan Cohen, the Director of Research Projects at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, lamented the lack of non-commercial API's: