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Ushahidi Online/Offline webapp

Antonio Tirabasso's picture
Submitted by Antonio Tirabasso on November 29, 2011 - 11:25
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Ushahidi is a free and open-source software platform used to collect and visualize information.

Local observers can report incidents via e-mail, web, text message (with FrontlineSMS) and Android/Iphone app.

Actually there is no way to collect data and reporting incident with smartphone (or laptop or tablet) when observes are offline.

 

The problem is to develop a mobile webapp with offline support to report informations on Ushahidi.

This webapp take advantage of webforms structure and usability and at least smartphone technology.

Local observer should collect data when connectivity is not available and report it as soon as a connection is available.

Webapp based on HTML5 API (to collect data) and Ushahidi API (to report data).

 

This could be interesting for any Ushahidi instance, either in crowdmap or local/custom instance the report web form will have offline support: in case of mobile devices the (optimized) form would be automatically downloaded this quite simple “add-on”:

  • works just following a simple link
  • download in Kb is minimal
  • tries to be as much as possible cross-platform
  • should work-when-everthing-else-fails(TM) :-)
  • does something “minimal” but requires no distribution of apps in stores, updates, management
  • can work offline also from a PC, laptop, etc., while keeping the information more structured than an email

Technical overview:

 

  • It is being implemented as stand alone application that only uses Ushahidi API
  • The application can be served
    • under the some domain of the Ushahidi instance (eg: ushahididomain.com/reporting) so that direct Javascript call to Ushahidi API can be made
    • in a different domain (eg: for crowdmap instances) associated with a proxy server for API calls
  • The app uses different HTML5 features:
  • application cache for offline use of static resources (html, css, javascript)
  • storages (web sql at the moment) for report data saved locally on the browser
  • geolocation API to obtain latitude and longitude from the device GPS
  • online/offline events
  • UI interface based on jQueryMobile
  • Very lightweight back-end written in python, can be simply replaced with other frameworks or directly integrated in Ushahidi core.
User Stories: 

A user (let’s say Anna) follows a link over Twitter (or FB, or any web page) to a crowdmap she want to use (just setup for the floods in her area).

Anna has some connectivity now: clicking on the link opens the web form for reporting in her smartphone (or laptop or tablet). She can now go wherever she needs to: travel, walk, drive in the area and create reports.

Any time she has come connectivity the reports are sent.

When connectivity is not available reports are kept in a queue (same as in current mobile apps). (GPS, if available on the phone, can be used).

Similar Projects and Resources: 

UshahidiFrontline sms
Ushahidi Android App: http://is.gd/1GmyjM

Qualitative Impact: 
This tool add a new way to report problem taking advantage of smartphone, tablet or laptop technology
Problem Definition Category: 
Disaster Resiliency

Comments

HI Francesco, I added my name here as a contact. I'll be in touch offline soon.


One thing though: Have you seen this RHoK problem definition:  http://www.rhok.org/problems/message-carrier-messages-without-connectivity

 

The original team won't be working on the project for this Rhok. The code is on github.

 


Heather L

Heatherleson Nov 30, 2011

Was the team successful in the development of this?  I'm looking for something along these lines in order to implement Ushahidi in my organization.

 

Thanks

KB3JUV Dec 07, 2011

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