The U.S. Census Bureau's official GitHub page, operating under the banner of Open Census, represents a significant step in our commitment to transparency and open access to the Census Bureau code that underpins our vital research and statistical products.

Open Census is an innovative undertaking that promotes open science practices within the Census Bureau. By providing the necessary infrastructure, guidance, and standardized metadata, Open Census empowers researchers to share their work effectively, including research articles, code, and data. This fosters collaboration, transparency, and innovation within the Census Bureau and with the broader research community. This recent effort on disseminating statistical and research code comes after Open Census’ successful release of guidance on how to cite Census Bureau products and information. See our Research Matter blog "Guidance on How to Cite Census Bureau Products and Information.”

GitHub is a web-based platform to store and share code and facilitates collaboration and reuse. GitHub simplifies code release by providing a centralized platform to host both code and documentation, streamlining distribution. It enables easy sharing and accessibility, making it ideal for disseminating research and statistical code.

Releasing code through GitHub allows the Census Bureau to:

• Support transparency: Supports Fosters greater trust in the Census Bureau's data and analyses by making our research open and accessible,
• Enhance reproducibility: Ensures that our findings can be independently replicated and validated, strengthening the credibility of our research.
• Foster reusability: Allows external researchers and the public to leverage, adapt, and improve upon our work, promoting wider use of Census Bureau data and driving new discoveries.

To ensure consistency and quality across our public repositories, Open Census is developing comprehensive guidance. By emphasizing clean code practices, the guidance will promote readability and reusability. Comprehensive documentation, including well-written comments and explanations, provides essential context and facilitates knowledge transfer. Furthermore, utilizing special files like README.md allows researchers and developers to provide clear instructions, project overviews, and contribution guidelines, thus enhancing the overall quality and accessibility of shared code.

When you visit the Census Bureau GitHub you can expect to find a growing number of repositories with statistical and research code.

Visit us on GitHub: github.com/uscensusbureau