Liberianizing the platform

A little over two weeks after beginning this Ushahidi deployment, John and I arrived at the Rights and Rice Foundation for our first hands-on training.  We’ve met with over a dozen organizations that have expressed an interest in having customized Ushahidi instances, yet it was the small staff at Rights and Rice (affectionately known as R&R) who were the first to quickly organized themselves for a software tutorial.  Musu, Patience and Anthony were waiting for us in their shared office, desks spread to the corners and several fans whirring in the center of the room.

After nearly three hours together, we had collectively navigated the Rights and Rice’s customized instance, explored how to submit incidents, check messages and verify reports with Rights and Rice staff.  Before long, Musu was instructing Anthony, Anthony was answering Patience’s questions, and John and I had learned scores about where we might make adjustments to suit Liberian needs.  These are some ideas, inspired by our first training, on how to Liberianize the Ushahidi platform: -       Challenge #1: the internet connection in Monrovia varies significantly depending on the phone company, the number of people on the shared line, or the weather.  At Rights and Rice, the connection was particularly slow.  The solution: a bare bones interface for administrators showing only those features relevant to Liberia.  This means, for example, removing the video link (not many partners are familiar with YouTube), Twitter access (hardly used in Liberia), and SMS alerts using Clickatell (few people in Liberia have credit cards with which to pay for this service)

Adding an audio file link would enable several partner organizations working in radio to share broadcasts of current events

Bulk editing is another helpful option for slow internet; being able to edit and delete many categories at once would save time for Rights and Rice administrators

-   Challenge #2: the timeline function demonstrates single events, yet many organizations in Liberia would like to map ongoing programs.  Some partners want to visualize entire programs in comparison to singular incidents of violence, corruption or peace efforts.  Another timeline-related issue: most Ushahidi deployments take place in a crisis setting, but in Liberia the platform is being introduced in a setting of relative stability.  As a result, the timeline’s default presentation of the most active reporting month is less relevant than it would be in a crisis; Rights and Rice had more than one report that was not visible because it occurred outside of the most active month and thus it seemed as if this event never happened. The solution: we are in the process of determining the best way to visually demonstrate continual events alongside singular incidents on the map and timeline (one of our priorities for August).  In relation to the latter challenge, John has developed a plug-in that provides administrators with time span options such as “display the last N days on the timeline”, or “from date N to date M on the timeline” (providing the much needed start and end date), or “display all reports.” -       Challenge #3: Rights and Rice, like many organizations in Liberia, works on a variety of issues that often overlap; the benefits of visualizing different categories on the Ushahidi map may be enhanced if more than one category could be selected at once.  This function would enable partners such as the Peacebuilding Office to see the location of County Peace Committees while simultaneously showing where land disputes have been reported – perhaps revealing relationships between different initiatives and incidents. The solution: Beginning in August, John will be developing an AND/OR function for this purpose.  As we envision it now, there would be a choice to display categories either in combination or separately according to particular search terms.  **A word of caution: there is the danger that this added function will encourage Ushahidi users to analyze data via the platform; we maintain during discussions with Liberia partners that Ushahidi should not be confused with geospatial analysis tools such as ArcGIS or OpenGeo.  The AND/OR function will primarily provide choice to users as to how they would like to display information, such as using binoculars or night-vision goggles to highlight certain aspects of the landscape. -       Challenge #4: Administrators currently have several options for what map will be the default base layer.  While Open Street Maps are well-populated in many countries, this is not the case in Liberia; Google Maps are the most detailed publicly accessible maps available to date and are thus the best option for partners here. The solution: John has created a plug-in that enables administrators to choose which Google map layer best suits their needs (Google streets, hybrid, Map Maker).  This plug-in also allows the user to choose at run-time which Google map layer they will use (previously, users did not have control over the displayed base map layer). -       Challenge #5: Currently, an administrator has a range of choices for how they would like to approve and verify a submitted incident.  Some of these options, however, do not seem to provide a better understanding of the source’s reliability or the accuracy of the report.  For example, event probability can be defined by either the likelihood that the event took place, how surprising the report seems to be, or how much the event makes sense.  Such choices may confuse rather than aid administrators attempting to approve and verify incident reports.

The solution: It seems that there are opportunities for further specification, particularly in a setting like Liberia where rumors are prevalent and a more robust and contextualized set of verification options would improve administrator’s chances of accurately verifying reports.  John and I will soon be developing a simplified and Liberia-specific set of approval and verification choices. In our efforts to provide solutions to Liberia’s peacemakers and early warning actors, John and I welcome any suggestions you may have on how to approach these challenges; we are, after all, learning together. ***The plug-ins described herein are currently housed on John Etherton’s branch of GitHub.  The source and compatibility of these plug-ins are changing as we collaborate with other Ushahidi developers, so it may be the case that these plug-ins are temporarily incompatible with your version of Ushahidi.