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Open Source CMS in Python/Django

Transparency for Public Projects
Political Processes
and Enquiry Commissions

Django Public Project - Screenshot

"Django Public Project" is a specialized content management system for creating websites around large-scale projects or for accompanying political processes or the work of enquiry commissions.

The goal of the software is to facilitate a deeper understanding of structures, processes and correlations and enhance the accessibility of associated information resources.

The software is open source and currently deployed by german pirate party in the state parliaments of Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia for their projects BERwatch and BLBwatch .

GitHub Live Demo Admin (dpp/demo)
"The project could become the standard for political investigation committees."
(German national newspaper taz on BERwatch, February 28th 2013)
Possible Applications
Example Image

Administration

Inclusion of the public on long-term planning processes.

Scenario: Preparations Big Sports Event

In the city a big sports event will be hold in a few years. Sports halls have to be build and suitable localities have to be found. The city administration is using the software for displaying responsibilities within departments as well as the progress of plannings, publishing documents and getting feedback for certain topics from the public.
Example Image

Civil Society

Critical monitoring of a large-scale project by civic actors.

Scenario: Airport Construction

In the city a new airport is planned. There is disagreement between societal groups if a new airport is necessary in the planned size and if it is possible to finish the construction work in the given frame of available resources. A civic organization decides to set up a software platform for documenting plannings and bringing scattered information of different stakeholders together on one central platform.
Example Image

Journalists

Publication, preparation and collectivization of research processes.

Scenario: Controversial Reform Project

The government is planning a big and socially controversial reform project. This was already thought through in the coalition agreement and the process until final enactment of the law will take several years. On the software platform the evolutionary history of the law making is documented. Stakeholders, their different interests und their acting due to the law making process is made transparent. Draft laws and documents from committees are published and can be commented on.
Example Image

Political Committees

Attendance of the work of a parliamentary investigation committee.

Scenario: Circumstances Bank Rescue

Following an economic crisis a big bank is getting into existential troubles and has to be rescued with billions of dollars of governmental money. A political investigation committee shall clarify how the bank could get into such a bad situation and if wrong decisions were made leading to this development. The software supports the research work of the political committee, influencing actors are presented, developments are traced and relevant documents are published. The public is encouraged to give hints about circumstances of different developments.
Infos

Features

  • Admin console for input of data
  • Auto-generated front-end website
  • Visualization of project relationships
  • Tags and web sources
  • Full-text search with autocomplete functionality
  • Document management including pdf viewer
  • Advanced commenting system
  • Languages: english, german

Development

"Django Public Project" is a programming library being developed in the programming language Python and sitting on top of the popular Django web framework.

The development of the software is taking place in public on the platform GitHub . There the status of development can be seen and bugs can be reported.

For questions to the community and more wide-spread discussions around features of the software or associated ideas and concepts there is also a Google Group .

Contact

For direct contact and for following news around the software there is a twitter account @DjPublicProject.

If you have got special needs for a sofware installation or if you need help on introducing the software you can also directly contact the developer Holger Drewes .

All extensions will be made open source and your contribution will help financing the future development of the software.

Thank You

Thanks to the fractions of the pirate party in the State Parliament of Berlin and in the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia for financing the initial development of the software.

Imprint: Holger Drewes | Helene-Lange-Str. 9 | 14469 Potsdam | Germany

Utilized images for example applications, source attribution:
"Administration": „Overview Stadium September, 10 2011“ by Léna - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
"Civil Society": "Berlin-Tegel from the air" by Tim Pritlove - http://www.flickr.com/photos/timpritlove/20233437/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
"Journalists": "2012-07-18-Plenarsitzung-Bayerischer-Landtag-5" by Tobias Klenze - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
"Political Committees": "Deutsche-Bank-Frankfurt-am-Main" by Raimond Spekking - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
(Images are solely for illustration purposes and have no direct connection to scenarios described or similar real world examples)