Sahana Software Foundation GSoC 2011 Ideas Page

Project Ideas

Cross-platform Projects


Hospital Organizational Data Interchange

Platform Vesuvius+Mayon+Eden
Mentors Vesuvius: G. Miernicki, Eden: D. König
Preferred communication email to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org
Brief description Do selective data interchange of hospital organizational data with Mayon, Eden, new international hospital ID server.
Blueprints
Other resources


Improvements to Sahana OCR

Platform OCR
Mentors Gihan Chamara, Eden: D. König
Preferred communication email to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org
Brief description Given paper forms designed for handwritten field collection of Sahana information, the goal overall is to develop a convenient, accurate, open-source system to process these forms. The GSoC 2011 effort is to design and complete the front-end, and build a setup file for easy installation. After completion of this project, a user shall be able process paper forms following these steps:
- Select scanner or file system as data source
- Perform OCR on each image file
- Present original image and captured data for error correction
- Generate an XML formatted result to upload to a server
- Display log and debug data for developers
Currently there is a minimal front-end, developed in C++ .Net, adequate to demonstrate the functionality. The back-end is already completed, at least with respect to basic functional requirements. You may have to fix back-end bugs as well. Please look at the current application.
BlueprintsProject home page
2010's GSoC student report
Other resourcesSource code


(Sahana App Store)

This idea, previously posted here, is now postponed to GSoC 2012, pending Sahana Software Foundation overall web site redo.


Agasti-based Projects

We will only be considering student proposals for projects using our Vesuvius or Mayon branches. The Krakatoa branch is no longer supported for active development.


Installer and Instance Registration

Platform Vesuvius+Mayon
Mentors Vesuvius - Greg Miernicki, Mayon - Charles Wisniewski
Preferred communication e-mail to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org, irc.freenode.net: nick:zelaz (charles)
Brief description Currently there is no installer for Vesuvius. Integrate one for the 1.0 release, using the same technology as Mayon. Add a registration process, of new server reporting to directory server and notification list.
Blueprints
Other resources Developer Docs


EDXL-TEP

Platform Vesuvius
Mentors Primary - Glenn Pearson. Secondary - Greg Miernicki
Preferred communication Initially, e-mail to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org
Brief description The new EDXL/Tracking Emergency Patients(TEP) protocol, currently undergoing OASIS standardization, can be helpful in disaster situations. For instance, when deployed by first responders and hospitals, in conjunction with a mobile communications grid and web-service backbone, it can relay survivor information, such as name and photo, from in-coming ambulances to hospital triage stations and family reunification councilors. There are many other potential uses. The specific project begins by creating an open-source reference PHP library for this protocol. While the draft protocol is extensive, the task is eased by an available C# library from which a port can done. Following that, selective integration into Vesuvius can occur, followed by work with NLM developers in testing against the US FEMA backbone.
Blueprints
Other resources FEMA EDXL-TEP page
OASIS EDXL-TEP Project Initiation Document


Distributing Triage Statistics to Maps

Platform Vesuvius
Mentors Glenn Pearson, Greg Miernicki, Lan Le (developing stats module)
Preferred communication Initially, e-mail to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org
Brief description Send out cumulative statistics about hospital triage-station arrivals as data feeds, particularly as geolocated data (e.g., KML, GeoRSS), suitable for posting to globes/maps.
Blueprints
Other resources Fuller description


Synch and Clone

Platform Vesuvius
Mentors Greg Miernicki
Preferred communication Initially, e-mail to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org
Brief description Synchronize across Vesuvius instances (e.g., SQL master/slave; over internet). Extend database Snapshot module to handle larger databases. Generate bulk test data. Clone test data among events.
Blueprints
Other resources


Reintegrate Pootle Translations

Platform Vesuvius
Mentors Glenn Pearson, Greg Miernicki
Preferred communication Initially, e-mail to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org
Brief description Pootle is an independent methodology for enabling and managing the distributed quick translations of software into multiple languages. It is particularly apt for short prompt words and enumerations, where context is not too important. The codebase used in Vesuvius has drifted away from the use of Pootle, instead working towards “Resource Page” infrastructure for custom pages per-event/per-language. This should work well for high-quality full-page translations, particularly when only a limited number of languages are involved. These two approaches can be seen as complimentary. This project thus involves re-invigorating the use of Pootle, and integrating it with the Resource Page system, to benefit content producers and translators.
Blueprints
Other resources Fuller description (coming soon!)


RESTful Web Services Integration

Platform Mayon (Symfony + Doctrine ORM)
Mentors Chad Heuschober
Preferred communication E-mail (agasti@lists.sahanafoundation.org), IRC #sahana-agasti@irc.freenode.net
Brief description The purpose of this project is to identify and develop a standards-based web service for one of Agasti Mayon's many datapoints and to use the developed code as a template for the development of additional services after the closure of the GSoC project. While identification of which datapoint to expose is part of this project, it is strongly recommend that the exposed service either comply with existing emergency management standards such as PFIF or any of the EDXL standards and/or provide a service consumable by other Sahana Software Foundation softwares such as Eden or Vesuvius. The the selected student will work with the project mentor to identify a datapoint, design the request parameters, select the data from the Doctrine ORM models, and respond using JSON and XML, depending on the user request. Requests and responses should be RESTful and will need to be integrated with the sfGuard authentication suite to prevent unintended data exposure. This project also supports the creation of the relevant routes and application control panels, as-appropriate. Project code, at closure, should be packaged and be independently installable as a module or package.
Blueprints Blueprint pending selection of a datapoint / service
Student Skills Strong data manipulation and query'ing skills; experience with RESTful web applications, Symfony, or Doctrine a plus
Other resources Mayon Wiki / Developer Live Disc
Steps to a Strong Proposal
  • Familiarize yourself with some of the standards mentioned in this proposal and be prepared to speak about them with your mentor
  • Have a look at the Database Schema and start deciding which discussed standard might be a good candidate for implementation
  • Examine the existing Symfony web services tools (there are many!) and start estimating what it would take to start publishing data
  • Find some key examples of using sfGuard to protect web services from being published in an unprotected state
  • Grab a copy of the Developer Live Disc and play around with bzr, Netbeans, and Mayon itself
  • Start to integrate yourself with the community; file (or even better, propose a fix for) a bug report, answer some questions for other new members, contribute to the Wiki. Taking the time to do this not only shows some devotion to the project, it also shows us what we can expect from you regarding your own documentation and its quality, and is just generally super-helpful!
  • Identify the areas where you skill have uncertainties and ask specific, targeted questions regarding your uncertainties; nothing is more impressive than someone who can ask insightful, well-thought-out questions!
  • Take your time, make some drafts, and think your proposal through. More often than not, proposals are rejected because students attempt very difficult tasks without realizing or thinking through the complexity of those tasks. Show us that you have a good idea of what's involved and that you've thought about it long enough to feel confident that you can complete it during the time allotted.


Edge Table Configuration Frontends

Platform Mayon (Symfony + Doctrine ORM)
Mentors Nils Stolpe
Preferred communication E-mail to discuss@lists.sahanafoundation.org, irc.freenode.net: nick:nstolpe
Brief description Currently the full functionality and flexibility built in to Agasti Mayon's schema is not being utilized. Administration modules to create and configure data points in edge tables will allow for this, and will make Agasti Mayon useful for a wider range of adopters.
Blueprints https://blueprints.launchpad.net/sahana-agasti/+spec/edge-table-configuration-frontend
Student Skills PHP, HTML, and CSS; javascript/jQuery, Symfony API a plus
Other resources http://wiki.sahanafoundation.org/doku.php/agasti:mayon:start http://wiki.sahanafoundation.org/doku.php/agasti:mayon:developer:edge_table_config_spec


Eden-based Projects

Usability

Platform Eden
Mentors Graeme Foster, Michael Howden
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com
Brief description We are looking for a student who can help make Sahana Eden beautiful! If you have a talent of design and and eye for what makes a website look good, then this is your opportunity to showcase your work. There are a wide variety of task which can be done to improve usability so we are looking for students to define exactly what they will be working on in their applications.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Projects/Advanced/Usability


Optimisation

Platform Eden
Mentors Michael Howden
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com
Brief description There are a wide variety of tasks which can be done to optimise the performance of Sahana Eden. This project will give a student valuable experience working on techniques. The first part of this project will involved developing a set of automated performance metrics which they will then use to measure the effectiveness of their optimisation.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Projects/Advanced/Optimisation


Map Enhancements

Platform Eden
Mentors Fran Boon
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com; IRC on freenode.net #sahana-eden (nick flavour)
Brief description Enhance the mapping functionality: complete Mobile support, Integrated Legends, complete moving internal Feature Layers to GeoJSON, allow swapping from embedded to full-screen without a reload of the page, OSM PoI Layers, YouTube/Flickr layers, complete migration to more static JS.
Skills needed OpenLayers, Python.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintGeographicInformationSystems


GIS Enhancements

Platform Eden
Mentors Fran Boon
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com; IRC on freenode.net #sahana-eden (nick flavour)
Brief description Enhance the GIS functionality: Completing the suite of GIS functions & having these work across PostGIS, MySQL & Spatialite (falling back to pure Python where not using any of these).
Skills needed Python.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintGeographicInformationSystems


Save Searches & Subscription

Platform Eden
Mentors Michael Howden Robby O'Connor
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com
Brief description Within Sahana Eden users need to be able to save the searches they make to come back to them later and also to subscribe to updates via Email, SMS and IM.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Projects/Advanced/Subscription & http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Projects/Advanced/Subscription


Matrix Report

Platform Eden
Mentors Michael Howden
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com
Brief description Create a generic method to produce Matrix/Cross Tab reports.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/Projects/Advanced/MatrixReport


OCR

Platform Eden
Mentors Dominic Koenig
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com
Brief description Continue the work with having forms print out via PDFs & then have the forms imported back to the database via Assisted-OCR (checkboxes filled automatically & UI to manually transcribe text fields from the handwritten forms)
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintOCR


Web Setup

Platform Eden
Mentors Shikhar Kohli
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com
Brief description Provide a web-based tool to do the initial & ongoing configuration of an instance.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintWebSetup


Localisation enhancements

Platform Eden
Mentors Fran Boon
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com; IRC on freenode.net #sahana-eden (nick flavour)
Brief description Improve our ability to do Localisation: Enhance our tools for managing translations (link to Pootle from within Eden to upload/download/merge translation files). Integrate localisation from jQuery UI, Fix up various strings to make them more localisable (especially relating to word order around variables), Fix a few bugs with RTL support.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/SysAdmin#TranslationProcess
Other Resources http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/UserGuidelinesLocalisation http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintInternationalisation


GPS Sharing

Platform Eden
Mentors Fran Boon
Preferred communication e-mail to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com; IRC on freenode.net #sahana-eden (nick flavour)
Brief description Provide a way for field workers to easily share GPS Tracks & WayPoints.
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintGISGPSSharing


Database Migration

Platform Eden
Mentors Pat Tressel, Praneeth Bodduluri
Preferred communication Initially, email to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com; later email or IRC on freenode.net #sahana-eden (nicks ptressel, lifeeth)
Brief description Automate the process of converting a live database when the schema or initial data is changed by a software update.
Skills needed Relational database proficiency
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintDatabaseMigration


Human Intelligence Task Platform ("Job Jar")

Platform Eden
Mentors Pat Tressel, Dominic König
Preferred communication Initially, email to sahana-eden@googlegroups.com; later email or IRC on freenode.net #sahana-eden (nicks ptressel, nursix)
Brief description Implement a Human Intelligence Task platform: Allow defining tasks; dispatch tasks to workers; cross-check and evaluate results; test workers and score performance; provide training.
Skills needed HCI, statistics
Blueprints http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/BluePrintHumanIntelligenceTasks


Project Ideas Sandbox

This section contains ideas without designated mentors or without sufficient detail. It recognizes that someone at some point thought these would be good ideas to pursue for GSOC 2011. But without support of the Project PMC and a willing mentor, it is unlikely that these ideas will be pursued further. Students might be able to interest a mentor in the project and make it viable.

Standards

  • Database interoperability between Agasti and Eden for at least one module
  • Implement roles and ACLs for Agasti, and determine a common set of roles between Agasti and Eden.

Eden Ideas

  • Mobile clients
  • Backup, hot site, failover (using sync if it's ready, or cron, db dumps, & scripts)
  • Implement a specific data standard (EDXL, CAP)
  • Automatic updater
  • Registration of server to directory server and notification list
  • Task/Event Manager
  • Single Sign-On (maybe project-spanning?)


Template for Project Ideas

Project Idea Title

Platform [Which Sahana project this applies to – Eden, Vesuvius, Mayon, Standards, Cross-platform]
Mentors [Names of people willing to mentor this project]
Preferred communication [IRC/Nick; e-mail to discuss@, sahana-eden@, Sahana-agasti@; private e-mail to me@domain.com; skype to my.name]
Brief description [One paragraph narrative description of project]
Skills needed [Any specific useful skills or knowledge (other than basics).]
Blueprints [Links to blueprints or detailed descriptions]
Other resources [Links to references, supporting material, relevant standards, partner organizations, examples of use cases…]

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