COMMUNITY USER EDUCATIONAL TOOL

TOOLBOX #2

IMPLEMENTATION

Why do the toolbox? These tools are based upon the rich experiences of people and organizations that have used

the Ushahidi instance. The following toolboxes are crucial to your success!

Checklist TOOLBOX 1- SELF ASSESSMENT TOOLBOX 2- IMPLEMENTATION TOOLBOX 3 - USING YOUR INFORMATION

✔

TOOLBOX 2Implementation

This toolbox will help you implement your project using the Ushahidi/Crowdmap instance : - Review of your work from Toolbox #1- Choosing the platform that will work best for your project (Ushahidi or Crowdmap)- Understanding and planning roles and responsibilities- Think about information inflows and outflows- Plan a verification process that will link directly to action - Create a marketing plan- Build a feedback loop- Plan for a volunteer team- Plan and implement training for your members and partners

Project Goal/Objectives/anticipated impact_______database will auto-generate user’s answer from toolbox #1_____________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reasons for mapping_________database will auto-generate user’s answer from toolbox #1______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Partnerships____________database will auto-generate user’s answer from toolbox #1____________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

Information/Communication____________database will auto-generate user’s answer from toolbox # 1___________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Marketing Media Plan ____________database will auto-generate user’s answer from toolbox #1

_____________________________________________________________________________Technology Assessment

____________database will auto-generate user’s answer from toolbox #1

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The database will auto-generate the following:

Before moving into toolbox 2, here is a review of your work from the assessment toolbox….

I would like to make

changes…..

Let’s move on!

Which platform is best for your project? Ushahidi or Crowdmap

Choosing the platform that will work best for your project

The Ushahidi Platform

• A platform for organizations with more tech experience.• Needs to be downloaded to your own server• A good fit for a project that has tech experience and

developer support. • Allows for customization. • You can own the data

Check out the demo…..

• allows you to set up your own deployment of the Ushahidi Platform without having to install it on your own web server

• Does not require and installation• the fastest, simplest installation of the Ushahidi platform.• built to handle information coming out of a crisis.• No need for a developer• Fewer plug-ins• Open data / unable to password protect

Learn more on the website:FAQ’s

Which one will work best for you project?

TIPS: A technology developer (or tech savvy person) can install your Ushahidi instance and you or another team members can install Crowdmap. There is a very comprehensive Ushahidi User guide, that will help take you every step of the way.

TIPS: Community users believe that defining roles and responsibilities early in a Ushahidi project is very important to it’s success.

Understanding Roles/Responsibilities

Let’s collaborate! STOP HERE and consider having a workshop with your partners and audience to agree upon roles and responsibilities for your

project!!!

Planning roles and responsibilities for your project will depend on the size of your project. Choose the option that best fits your project:

LARGE

medium

small

Planning a country-wide project, one that involves many partners, or will be collecting large amounts of information

Crisis Mapping Haiti, LibyaElection Monitoring Kenya/Uganda

Planning a small audience outreach program to collect and share with a single, specific community

Unsung Peace Heroes/Building Bridges

Short-term deployment with one to three volunteers. Lower targets for volume and outreach.

I Vote Because - http://ivotebecause.ca/

Understanding Roles/Responsibilities- (example of large project)

Here are some example roles from other deployments:

1) To the right examples- ->

Example TOR’sLeadershipLessons Learned Roles in Crisis

icon Roles in Election Monitoring

Project Manager (PM) Responsible for keeping the coordinators up to date on the project, monitor activities, and communicate what needs to be done for the project. Will organize meetings, draft agendas and reports.

Admin Coordinator Has direct access to the Ushahidi platform and is responsible for overseeing the approval of reports. Selects a small team with access to this site. Will be responsible for identifying mistakes in reports.

Technology Coordinator Often a technical advisor who is responsible for managing all technical problems. For example, will change categories, basemaps, & sms syncing programs Works with a PHP Developer and/or GIS expert. Not all projects require a PHP or GIS expert, especially if you are using Crowdmap.

Volunteer/Training Coordinator He/she will keep track of the volunteers and will coordinate the division of volunteers (ex, mappers, monitors and admins). Requires three different tasks: recruiting, training and coordinating.

Media/Outreach Coordinator Responsible for the platform messaging to the crowd/community and media and manages relationships with journalists and general media in general. You may have two people on this team one for the community/crowd and another for the media/journalists. Works closely with the PM on the media/outreach strategy.

Emergency Response Coordinator For Crisis related Projects: Responsible with a team to constantly monitor and process reports to identify emergencies and to provide information to responders. Communicates closely with the project manager or core team.

This is not a complete list!Consider having a workshop with your partners and audience to agree upon roles and responsibilities for your project!!!

Planning Roles/Responsibilities

Role (drop down box+ write in) Partners (drop down box+ write in) Responsibility (write in) Tasks or Specidic act (write in)-

Job TOR’s Partner Agreements(ex. Memorandum of

Understanding, MOUs)

Learn more…icon

Community user from other deployments recommend a leadership team. Who will be part of your leadership team?

TOR job description

Planning Roles/Responsibilities- CRISIS and EMERGENCIES

You will likely need to plan, recruit volunteers, and build partnerships at the same time. We recommend that you use the following resources.

RESOURCES for IMPLEMENTING THE USHAHIDI/CROWDMAP PLATFORMS:

- The StandbyTaskForce- http://blog.standbytaskforce.com/ - The CrisisMappers Network www.crisismappers.net/ - The Ushahidi Manual

Planning Information & Communication Flows

One of the most appealing reasons to use Ushahidi/Crowdmap is the potential to improve communication and information flow between groups & to improve knowledge among communities and to help people make decisions. The next few slides will help you create the information flows using Ushahidi/Crowdmap, but first think about how you will analyze and feedback information:

1) How you will analyze your information?

2) How you will feedback information?

Examples

)

Planning Information & Communication Flows Here are some example of the part and groups that will be part of your information system

Ushahidi or Crowdmap

Platform

Incoming Information

Feedback loops and return of information

The ‘crowd” or public communityPeople who will freely send in information from an open community who are unknown to the program . For example; affected people during a crisis, citizens during an election. (need more examples here!)

A trusted or bounded community Individuals or Groups that are part of the community and also part of known set of reporters to the platform. For example: NGO workers reporting to a UN system, election monitors reporting into the system. Pre-identified trusted community members sending in human rights information, and even known first responders during a disaster.

Partners who will send &

receive information

Other organizations/partners- Organization that are partners involved in the program. This can be the organization that represents a bounded community (ex. Election monitoring group, UN Cluster, consortium) They can also be organization that wish to received analyzed information as well. ( Media/Journalists)

Ushahidi/Crowdmap Platform- This is where information from the group above will come into and will also be the location where analyzed or processed information may come from. Within this platform there may be more people involved to process/analyze and present information back to the wider community. Remember that on major part of the platform is internet and web-based!

Planning Information & Communication Flows

This picture will help you determine information flows with the Usahahidi instance

Ushahidi/Crowdmap Platform

Ushahidi Map/Website

categorieslayersreportsstatistics

Partners who will send

information

you can have another group here like

international media

EXAMPLES- ALL

Incoming Information

Feedback loops and return of information

Your thoughts?

UNDP/OCHA COLOMBIAHAITI CRISIS MAPLIBYA CRISIS MAP

Planning Information & Communication FlowsCreate the information flow and system that will best fit your project

(is it possible to do a drag/drop function here? Where they would drag a group/partner into a circle? )

Drag your partners/group into the shapes- (auto-generated from assessment)

Add more partners….

Drag the arrows to show where the information will enter

Information/Communication

Here is a recap of your information communication strategy from the assessment toolbox

make changes….

Let’s move on!

How do you plan to collect information the information you wish to map on the Ushahidi platform?

SMS Web Twitter Smart phone Apps

Email Call Center Voice Message Facebook

List the specific types of information that you will collect for your project:

Face to Face Radio Other________________ Other________________

Information and CategoriesA very good way to create and choose categories is to first understand how you will use the collected information.

Information How will it be collected?

(drop down or write in..)

XXX camp sms, phone

XXXX hospital sms, phone

CATEGORY

Camp Locations

Hospital (functioning)

How will this information be

categorized?

Information How will it be communicated out?

(drop down or write in..)

Refugee camp locations in X region UN cluster map, SMS alert,

Functioning hospitals in Y region UN Health map, Cluster meeting

How will this information be communicated out?

EXAMPLE: You are quickly setting up a crisis map. Your goal is to identify the location of refugee camps to share who/what/where maps and share information about hospitals/ and clinics at UN Cluster meetings so organizations can plan shelter and health services.

The information for the UN meeting will be maps with refugee locations and functioning hospital locations

Categories you can create are “Camp Locations” and “Hospitals (functioning)”

Now think about how this information will feasibly be collected. a) crowd information b) NGO individuals reporting into the system.

1

2

3

123

Adding your information and feedback loops-

Now add the information types to information diagram that you just created.

Have you completed the feedback loop?

More tips…..

(is it possible to do a drag/drop function here? Where they would drag a group/partner into a circle? )Drag your information types next to the red and green arrows above (auto-generated from assessment)

.

Schematic diagram from Slide 11 inserted here.

Information OUT (drop down?)

Auto inserted from slide 13

As above

Information IN (drop down)

Auto inserted from slide 13

As above

ACTION AND RESPONSE

Verifying informationOne of the challenges of using a crowdsourcing tool is verification: When information enters the Ushahidi/Crowdmap platforms you or your team will need to verify and confirm reports.

Here are some ways that deployments have verified information:

• You have the information from multiple reliable sources• You have two or more text messages from different phone numbers about the same incident.• Someone on your team has spoken with the person on the ground to get more detailed information about the report.• On of the providers of information is a partner or part of your “trusted network”

What is a trusted network?

Twitter challenges Example verificationsicon The Guide to

verification

What will be the rules to verify a report? (enter text here)

If you have large numbers of reports coming in all at once, how will you prioritize which ones to verify quickly?

How will you train your teams on how to verify? (enter text here)

TIPS: If there is any doubt about a report, a good first step would be to mark the report as unverified, until you have the opportunity to investigate further.

Choosing the Right MapWhen using Ushahidi or Crowdmap your verified reports will be placed on a map. You will need to choose a

map that best fits the needs of your project.

TIPS: How large is the area that you will place information on the map? (country, region, city, community)?

Consideration #1: What is the scope or size of your project. Do you plan to collect information for an entire country, a city, or just a community?

Consideration #2: Is there a map that exists of the areas that you are interested in? Some maps services may not have the area mapped. You should always check. If it does not exist? What are the next steps? What are your options?

Ushahidi has 4 available providers, if you have a developer you can have them add another map to better fit your needs. The only customizable map is OpenStreetMap (OSM) Check out the following map providers here:

I can’t find a map for my project ….. Visual Earth

Messaging/CampaignHow will people find out about your initiative?

If your project involved receiving messages from the “crowd” or the open community, it is very important that you have a clear message and strategy about what type of information you would like people to send in, and for what purpose you will be using the information.

Here are some things to think about:

HOW DO PEOPLE ALREADY BROADCAST INFORMATION TO ONE ANOTHER? Think about the ways that people communicate with one another about information. If the community that you want to send in message watches television, reads the newspaper, or listen to the radio, this may be a very effective way to inform people of your project and why you want them to send you information.

KEEP IT SIMPLE Don’t forget about face to face communications! Think about how people can spread the word in local meetings, through community leaders, and other basic communication pathways.

TRUST If you are asking people to provide sensitive information how can you create trust so that they will feel safe and comfortable to provide information? Who will help you achieve this? (community leaders, etc) and how long will it take?

TIMELINE Think carefully about the time it will take to launch your campaign. If you are planning on using different media plan for time to contact radio stations, money for printing fliers, and more time to build relationships and trust with community leaders who may promote your project.

SMS USE The presence of mobile networks does not always mean that people will easily and freely SMS text. If you expect most of your information to come by SMS , investigate whether or not people are literate, feel comfortable texting, etc.

COST Although using more media channels increase your campaign, it will likely also increase the cost of your project. One inexpensive and very effective way is to use community leaders and community organizations but this requires time and trust- which you may not always have especially during an emergency or crisis.

TIPS: Many users believe in the importance of advance outreach via media coverage, advertising, workshops & demonstrations.

The MessageWhat will you actually say in your message?

The specific words that you use in your campaign message will not only determine the type of messages you received, but will also influence the expectations of the users or “crowd”. Here are some examples and the successes and challenges.

Needs Accurate Content here!

This message generated thousand of messages, but one of the challenges was the large number of needs. In addition many people believed that if they texted in their need, that there would always be a response.

This web banner was one of many message that Building Bridges use to have people map peace initiatives around the world.

Needs content here for snowmagedden

MORE EXAMPLES

Managing Expectations of your partners/audienceWhen using the Ushahidi/Crowdmap platform people often expect a response.

HERE ARE SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

• If you decide not to respond, then it is extremely important that you make this clear to your audience to ensure that there are no expectations around the project or that there is no information gathering system that you cannot or are not set up to meet.

• How will you ensure that there are not expectations around the project or information gathering system that you cannot or are not set up to meet?

• Do you have a communication plan when you are unable to fulfill the promise of response that you messaged out in the past?

• How will you return the information to the community/local district/those who provided so that they can use it for decision making or program intervention?

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPES OF USER EXPERIENCES

(please help with content here!!!)

TIPS: There are different ways to manage expectations, like conducting local media campaigns, or sending automatic responses to messages saying "thank you for message, now the message will be processed", and so on. (Anahi)

Messaging/CampaignHow will people find out about your initiative?

How will people find out about your initiative? What communication pathways will you use?

TIPS: If you have time, we recommend that you touch base with your partners and users to see how they will interpret your message.

Write down some sample messages that you will you for your campaign

How will you manage expectation from communities and the crowd?

Volunteers/Data Handling Team

The human resources needed to run the platform

Training

To be completed soon. Please add ideas here!

THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING TOOLBOX #2!

Please save this file and add your name to the title. Then, return it to Heather Leson hleson@ushahidi.com.

. You will receive a report from toolbox #1 to use in your project.

In your email please send comments on how you would like this tool improved or changed!

Thank you for being a very important part of Ushahidi’s User community!

Appendix

Local Associations

Local Responders- police, redes social Agencies/Intl Orgs- PDP, defenseria, NGO, UN

Key node(s)- Trusted by community- Trusted by the system

CommunityIndividual(s) Platform

SIHCESIDCE

Key Components- Fact- Request- Documentati

on- Proof of

Support

Platform Administrators- Information management- Maintain flow of information from

nodes to committee- technical knowledge to maintain

platform infrastructure

Government- Governor- Secretariats- Advisors

Public AdvocacyRecommendations

Rapid responseCommittee- validate/monitor/and analyze information- local organizations rapidly respond - Coordinate & collectively present information to

government- key representative of organizations

-

Collective Report

Policy

Monitoring

Individual Agency Recommendations

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