Welcome to Apolitical’s digital government resource atlas 2.0 — a collection of some of the best publicly available tools, guidebooks and datasets from around the world.
We first launched the atlas after crowdsourcing suggestions from Apolitical’s membership of public servants and policymakers in 2018. Since then the atlas has been shared tens of thousands of times around the world and we’ve had hundreds of suggestions for additional resources.
We’ve added tons of new resources as well as entirely new sections on topics such as accessibility, data ethics, introductory learning and great digital government newsletters.
With this collection of resources and toolkits, you’ll be able to work out how to launch a digital revolution in your department, and find some of the tools to help you do it. We are continually looking to update this document. If you have a suggestion for a great resource please use our google form.
DIGITAL GOVERNMENT NEWSLETTERS
🗞️ Digital.gov Newsletter
The Digital.gov Newsletter is a round-up of work, news, and ideas from people and teams across government, along with upcoming community events and training aimed at elevating digital government expertise
🗞️ Public Digital Newsletter
The newsletter covers technology, public policy, digital delivery, news from digital government and more
🗞️ Government Technology Newsletter
Subscribe to Government Technology’s email newsletters to monitor breaking news that impacts your government missions, mandates and programs
🗞️ Proud City Digital Government Newsletter
A newly launched newsletter covering topics from accessibility and content design, to digital government news
🗞️ PUBLIC Newsletter
This newsletter covers a broad range of topics including digital government, GovTech and public sector innovation
🗞️ Canadian Digital Services Newsletter
This newsletter isn't just for Canadians! By subscribing, you’ll receive useful guides and resources (as well as CDS specific content)
🗞️ Digital Europe Newsletter
Latest news on digital technology and government in Europe
🗞️ Futuregov Statecraft Weekly Newsletter
A good mix of links to case studies that talk through design and engineering in government, as well as news on how local government in the UK in particular are digitally transforming
INTRODUCTORY LEARNING RESOURCES
💡 Tom Loosemore on 'What does digital really mean'?
Partner at Public Digital and co-founder of the UK Government Digital Service Tom Loosemore shares his insights into digital government with Apolitical in this video
💡 A Brief Introduction to Digital Transformation from Nesta
An introductory guide for public sector leaders who want to understand and get the best out of technology
💡 Introduction to Content Design from GDS
Learn about user-centred content that's easy for everyone to understand and access
💡 Apolitical's Course on Driving Digital Transformation
Become acquainted with the core concepts underpinning digital transformation in government with this introductory online field guide
💡 For and with the people: An introduction to government digital service
A brief introduction to digital government services across the globe
DIGITAL GOVERNMENT GUIDES
📝 UK Government Service Manual
A user-friendly manual covering all the topics government teams need to create and run digital services
📝 18F Digital Service Delivery Guides
Comprehensive technical guides focused on user-centred development
📝 Ontario Digital Service Design Playbook
A crash course on service design, structured around a "digital service design life cycle"
📝 The U.S. Digital Services Playbook
A 13-point playbook with interactive checklists and key questions
📝 GovTech Singapore's Digitalisation Guide
An introductory guide to digitalisation covering basic concepts of digital government as well as key principles for digitising services
📝 Canadian Digital Services' Guide to Usability Testing
An easy-to-use 101 on usability testing
📝 Colombia's Manual de Gobierno Digital (Spanish)
An example of a government guide created to help other agencies implement digital policies
📝 Mexico's Guías del Estándar por Estado de Digitalización (Spanish)
A compendium of good practices, reference models and documentation to guide the digitisation of government institutions in Mexico
📝 Denmark's Development Guide for Digital Public Services
This guide for digital services from the Danish government provides an introduction to the principles for user-friendliness and accessibility
📝 Korea's E-Government Guide
Learn more about South Korea's E-Government success
DIGITAL STANDARDS AND ACCESSIBILITY
💻 New Zealand's Digital Service Design Standard
12 "high-level purpose statements" accompanied by more detailed objectives
💻 Australia's Digital Service Standard
13 standards that "ensure digital teams build government services that are simple, clear and fast"
💻 Singapore's Digital Service Standard
A set of standards to help deliver digital services that are easy, seamless and relevant for citizens
💻 The UK's Digital Service Standard
A set of 18 criteria to "help government create and run good digital services"
💻 Argentina's Estándares de Servicios Digitales (Spanish)
Principles and technical guidelines for developing digital services in Argentina
💻 Lou Downe's 15 Principles of Good Service Design
A set of 15 universal principles for designing services that work for users
💻 India’s Digital Service Standards
A set of interrelated standards and principles that apply to all aspects of any digital service
💻 Mexico's Digital Standards
How Mexico has boosted productivity and user-orientation in public services
💻 Ontario Inclusive Design Cards
Five standards to ensure the design process is inclusive
💻 Canadian Digital Service's Accessibility Handbook
A comprehensive guide for creating accessible and inclusive services both in Canada and beyond
💻 Making Your Service Accessible: An Introduction
An introductory resource from the UK Government on how to make your services accessible
TOOLS AND TOOLKITS
🛠 Proud City Onboarding Guide
This tool offers a step-by-step approach to launching government websites and teaches how to make ongoing, informed digital service decisions
🛠 Canada Digital Service's Collection of Platform Products
A collection of tools for developers building government services 'so that you don't have to build them from scratch'
🛠 The OECD Going Digital Toolkit
The Going Digital Toolkit helps countries assess their state of digital development and formulate policy strategies and approaches in response
🛠 This Is Service Design Doing Method Library
A versatile list of different formats for research and ideation during the development of any service, as well as a valuable resource for planning effective design meetings in general
🛠 New Zealand Digital Service Design Tools
Tools to help test ideas and products with real users and design services that work for people
🛠 The World Bank's Digital Development Toolkits
The Digital Development Toolkits Series aims to help policymakers identify policy challenges and actions for digital development
🛠 Danish Design Centre Tools
A selection of easy to use tools to encourage innovation and design thinking
🛠 Project Wizard
Difi's recommended project model for managing digitalisation projects in public enterprises.
🛠 OGP Toolbox
An interactive collection of digital solutions to improve democracy
🛠 USA Civic Service Design Tools + Tactics
An introduction to service design for public servants, and a set of practical ways to include design methods in your work
GREAT GOVERNMENT GITHUBS
📁 UK Government Digital Service GitHub
1000+ repositories
📁 18F GitHub
1000+ repositories
📁 Singapore Government Digital Services GitHub
90+ repositories
📁 Australia Digital Transformation Office GitHub
90+ repositories
📁 Canadian Digital Service GitHub
50+ repositories
📁 Estonia e-Government Building Blocks
50+ repositories
📁 Developers Italia
260+ repositories
📁 Canada Open Government Initiative Github
50+ repositories
📁 City of Helsinki Github
200+ repositories
📁 Royal Navy Github
2 repositories
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE/RESOURCES
💾 Web Experience Toolkit
An open source front-end framework for building websites from the Canadian government
💾 code.gov
A platform for sharing the American federal government's code
💾 The Dataverse Project
Dataverse is an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyse research data
💾 Citizens Foundation
A nonprofit based in Iceland offering creative and secure digital democracy solutions
💾 Decidim
Free open-source participatory democracy framework for cities, originally developed for the Barcelona city government
💾 Fix My Street
mySociety's popular map-based reporting platform
💾 X-Road Data Exchange Layer
Source code of the X-Road data exchange layer software developed in partnership by Finnish and Estonian governments
OPEN DATA RESOURCES
📊 The ODI's Guide to Publishing Open Data in a Time of Crisis
A guidebook that shows how to publish open data in times of crisis
📊 Resources.data.gov
An online repository of policies, tools, case studies, and other resources to support data governance, management, exchange
📊 The Open Data Handbook
Guides, case studies and resources for government & civil society on the "what, why and how" of open data
📊 The ODI's Open Standards for Data Guidebook
A guidebook that helps people and organisations create, develop and adopt open standards for data
📊 Open Data Swiss Handbook
Step-by-step guide for those wishing to publish open government data
📊 New Zealand Data Standards and Guidance
Resources, guidance and tutorials on how to define, manage and release government data
📊 Koordinates 'An introduction to open government data'
6 steps on how to publish government data
📊 Google Dataset Search
A search engine from Google that helps researchers locate online data that is freely available for use
📊 The Open Data Kit
Free and open-source software for collecting, managing, and using data in resource-constrained environments
📊 The Open Data Guide
A guidebook for public servants who want to get started with open data
DATA ETHICS
⚖️ The ODI's Data Ethics Canvas
A new approach for organisations to identify and manage data ethics considerations
⚖️ GOV.UK’s Data Ethics Guide
The Data Ethics Framework guides the design of appropriate data use in government and the wider public sector
⚖️ The Turing Institute ‘What is Data Ethics’
An introduction to the principles of data ethics
⚖️ DataEthics.EU Newsletter
A monthly newsletter about data ethics and privacy
⚖️ The Internet Society’s Principles for Responsible Data Handling
A introductory article about responsible data handling
OPEN DATA SETS
📈 Data USA
A visualisation engine for public US government data
📈 Australia Open Data Portal
Provides access to data published by the Australian government and various public institutions
📈 Data.gov.uk
Find data published by UK central government, local authorities and public bodies
📈 Singapore Government Open Data
Data repository that aims to make data relevant and comprehensible to the public via visualisation models and application development
📈 Etalab’s Collection of French Open Data Platforms
A set of multiple open data platforms from the French government
📈 Canada’s Open Data Portal
An one-stop shop for Government of Canada open datasets
📈 UN Open Data Portal
All the UN’s various databases in once place
📈 EU Open Data Portal
Providing access to European Union open data
📈 World Bank Open Data
Free and open access to global development data
📈 European Data Portal
A portal which harvests the metadata of public sector information available on public data portals across European countries
📈 London DataStore
The Greater London Authority’s initiative to release its data sets for public usage
📈 NYC Open Data
A hub aimed at engaging New Yorkers with data produced and used by the New York City government
📈 Hong Kong Open Data Portal
User-friendly government open-license data portal
📈 Germany's Open Data Portal
A German data platform that gives visitors an overview of available open data resources from federal, state and local administrations
📈 Mexico Open Data Portal
The official open data portal of the Mexican government
📈 Open Data Swiss
An open data portal with all the data from the Swiss government and associated organisations
📈 Japan's Open Data Portal
An open data portal with all the data from the Japanese government and associated organisations
📈 Brazil's Open Data Set
An open platform for public data in Brazil
DATA VISUALISATION
📶 Tableau Public
Data visualisation service that allows users to embed visualisations into web pages and blogs
📶 Datawrapper
A chart and map creator and associated platform
📶 RawGraphs
An open source data visualisation framework that aims to make visualising complex data easy for all
📶 D3.JS
A JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data using HTML, SVG, and CSS
📶 Chart Studio
Chart Studio is Plotly’s powerful, web-based online chart creator. Either drag-and-drop data files or connect to SQL
📶 Infogram
An ‘intuitive visualisation tool that empowers people and teams to create beautiful content’ with a free plan
📶 Chart Blocks
An online chart building tool with a free plan
📶 Google Charts
A set of free, easy-to-use tools for creating interactive charts and data visualisations
📶 Palladio
A Stanford-developed data-driven tool designed to visualise complex data through maps, graphs, and lists
📶 TimelinesJS
TimelineJS is an open-source tool developed by Knight Lab at Northwestern University that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines
📶 StoryMap
A free tool developed by Knight Lab at Northwestern for building maps that tell stories
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