Re: Digest for talkingpapers@googlegroups.com - 4 Messages in 1 Topic
Mike Herrick
I'm guessing it's not the right fit, but I figured I'd mention it since form builders are being discussed.
I'm a contributor to http://www.trisano.org an open source, citizen-focused surveillance and outbreak management system.
We built and maintain an extensive form builder tool for this application. It's targeted at being a point of flexibility in a large system that has both a transaction system and a data warehouse. Forms in TriSano complement what we call "Core Data" for diseases, places, contacts, etc.
If a green field effort is started to build a form bulider tool for talkingpapers, we'd be happy to share some lessons learned or the code (TriSano is Ruby & Java Based).
Mike
Portland, Oregon
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/talkingpapers/topics
- haiti codes [4 Updates]
Topic: haiti codesRobert Kirkpatrick <rgkirk...@gmail.com> Feb 15 06:26PM -0800 ^
Dear Talking Papers colleagues,
My apologies for the hiatus in communications. Things have been a bit
complex on this end, between relocating to the East Coast, starting a
new job, and dealing with a back injury. I know Haiti has been a
focus for many on this list as well. I just posted a response to
Kuang's thoughtful comments, which I'm embarrassed to note date back
to December.
We're getting interest from others in seeing this project move forward
as soon as possible. I'll direct their comments here.
Chris, the matrix codes idea is indeed interesting. How might you
imagine such codes would be used? As I recall, these codes are
designed to contain a reference such as a URL, vs the data itself.
Might such a code be useful to refer to an online copy of the schema,
from which the schema in the paper form might or might not diverge?
What if a matrix code (printed as a flyer? laminated?) could be
attached to a site or facility AFTER a Talking Papers / Walking
Paper's form were completed, containing a unique, randomly URL pre-
encoded into the blank Talking Paper's form at the time of generation,
that would always point to the data collection where a copy of the
data should eventually reside?
In terms of deployments, isn't Walking Paper's already being deployed
there?
Edouard, you had a few ideas for deployment as well, no?
Yes, the drupal form-builder in interesting in its approach. I think
the principles of doing one thing only, doing it simply, and doing it
well are important. As with so many aspects of a project like Talking
Papers, there are many pre-existing systems with components that could
be customized to address an aspect of the requirements, but they each
come with baggage. If we do choose to go the route of building our
own formsbuilder -- which I personally favor -- the approach Nathan
took with this drupal module makes sense for our forms-builder as well
(aside from the dependency on drupal, that is).
I'll talk to some of my former colleagues in the disaster relief
world who are now working in Haiti and brainstorm about ways Talking
Papers could help.
Robert
Chris Blow <cgb...@gmail.com> Feb 15 08:40PM -0800 ^
Yikes, hope you are feeling better Robert! And congratulations on the
new position.
Thanks for the update.
I am also in the process of moving -- back to the Bay Area, if anyone
can get together. I'm likely going to be unavailable for work on
talkingpapers until I get settled in early March. If anyone can meet
in San Francisco, I think it would be great to work on this in person.
c
Chris Blow
On Feb 15, 2010, at 6:26 PM, Robert Kirkpatrick wrote:
"Edouard Legoupil" <LEGO...@unhcr.org> Feb 16 09:52AM +0100 ^
Hi Patrick,
As said since the start, I believe that concept such as talking papers
would really fill a gap in terms of data collection the field.
The few colleagues, data manager in the field, I told about this
project were all enthusiastic. I hope we will soon be able to take the
opportunity of such momentum.
From a field perspective, we would have roughly three situations were
we could use such system:
- Site assessment: (some examples from the field here:
http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/IMToolBox/web/05_Asmt.html )
- Peoples of concerns / beneficiary registration
- Household survey
I am currently looking at building a xsd for each of those contexts.
There area already a lot of lessons learnt. The question is how to
ensure that forms will benefit from the de facto standards without
becoming too rigid at the same time. It is extremely difficult to get
diverse organizations to agree on a common schema and It is
counterproductive for a central authority to impose arbitrary standards
by fiat. Keeping a balance between the need for standard and the need of
the real world imply to find a way to integrate all forms without having
central authority (a kind of pipeline that would be enrich directly the
main schema). That might be one of the big challenges of this form
designer...
A few years ago, an interesting project, the IDML, International
Development Markup Language, has been aimed at building an xsd for
project directory and reporting:
-
http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/SimpleActivitySchema/IDML_091.xsd
- http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/Reporting/idmlReporting.xsd
It failed to become a standard for the "who's doing what where"
directory but the technology, at that time, was not as mature as it is
nowadays. The “People Finder Interchange Format” (http://zesty.ca/pfif/
) is a good example of the new opportunities:
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Person_Finder
What has changed is that the Xforms, build out of those XSD, would be
then deployable in a variety of context:
- Webform with http://www.agencexml.com/xsltforms that sounds more
portable than the Mozilla addon
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/824
- Android form via ODK http://code.google.com/p/open-data-kit/
- JavaME / JavaROSA form, etc.
I have not looked yet very precisely, but taking in account that
Talking papers would be based on Xforms, in addition of those already
mentioned, some tools already available would be:
- Open Office writer:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guides/Writer_Guide/XForms
This one do work offline, maybe an “Talking papers” addon in Openoffice
could be a good option…
- Oryx is browser based: http://bpt.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/Oryx/XForms /
http://code.google.com/p/oryx-editor/
I am looking forward to see soon a prototype that we could test & pilot
somewhere in the field.
Best regards,
Edouard
>>> On 16/02/2010 at 3:26 AM, in message
<dbafb7c8-4f53-48a5...@15g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Kirkpatrick <rgkirk...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Talking Papers colleagues,
My apologies for the hiatus in communications. Things have been a bit
complex on this end, between relocating to the East Coast, starting a
new job, and dealing with a back injury. I know Haiti has been a
focus for many on this list as well. I just posted a response to
Kuang's thoughtful comments, which I'm embarrassed to note date back
to December.
We're getting interest from others in seeing this project move forward
as soon as possible. I'll direct their comments here.
Chris, the matrix codes idea is indeed interesting. How might you
imagine such codes would be used? As I recall, these codes are
designed to contain a reference such as a URL, vs the data itself.
Might such a code be useful to refer to an online copy of the schema,
from which the schema in the paper form might or might not diverge?
What if a matrix code (printed a
s a flyer? laminated?) could be
attached to a site or facility AFTER a Talking Papers / Walking
Paper's form were completed, containing a unique, randomly URL pre-
encoded into the blank Talking Paper's form at the time of generation,
that would always point to the data collection where a copy of the
data should eventually reside?
In terms of deployments, isn't Walking Paper's already being deployed
there?
Edouard, you had a few ideas for deployment as well, no?
Yes, the drupal form-builder in interesting in its approach. I think
the principles of doing one thing only, doing it simply, and doing it
well are important. As with so many aspects of a project like Talking
Papers, there are many pre-existing systems with components that could
be customized to address an aspect of the requirements, but they each
come with baggage. If we do choose to go the route of building our
own formsbuilder -- which I personally favor -- the approach Nathan
took with this drupal module makes sense for our forms-builder as well
(aside from the dependency on drupal, that is).
I'll talk to some of my former colleagues in the disaster relief
world who are now working in Haiti and brainstorm about ways Talking
Papers could help.
Robert
"Edouard Legoupil" <LEGO...@unhcr.org> Feb 16 12:05PM +0100 ^
Hi,
I forgot to mention: http://www.orbeon.com/forms/orbeon-form-builder
for a form builder platform...
Edouard
>>> On 16/02/2010 at 9:52 AM, in message
<4B7A6ADE.D...@unhcr.org>, "Edouard Legoupil"
<LEGO...@unhcr.org> wrote:
Hi Patrick,
As said since the start, I believe that concept such as talking papers
would really fill a gap in terms of data collection the field.
The few colleagues, data manager in the field, I told about this
project were all enthusiastic. I hope we will soon be able to take the
opportunity of such momentum.
From a field perspective, we would have roughly three situations were
we could use such system:
- Site assessment: (some examples from the field here:
http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/IMToolBox/web/05_Asmt.html )
- Peoples of concerns / beneficiary registration
- Household survey
I am currently looking at building a xsd for each of those contexts.
There area already a lot of lessons learnt. The question is how to
ensure that forms will benefit from the de facto standards without
becoming too rigid at the same time. It is extremely difficult to get
diverse organizations to agree on a common schema and It is
counterproductive for a central authority to impose arbitrary standards
by fiat. Keeping a balance between the need for standard and the need of
the real world imply to find a way to integrate all forms without having
central authority (a kind of pipeline that would be enrich directly the
main schema). That might be one of the big challenges of this form
designer...
A few years ago, an interesting project, the IDML, International
Development Markup Language, has been aimed at building an xsd for
project directory and reporting:
-
http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/SimpleActivitySchema/IDML_091.xsd
- http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/Reporting/idmlReporting.xsd
It failed to become a standard for the "who's doing what where"
directory but the technology, at that time, was not as mature as it is
nowadays. The “People Finder Interchange Format” (http://zesty.ca/pfif/
) is a good example of the new opportunities:
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Person_Finder
What has changed is that the Xforms, build out of those XSD, would be
then deployable in a variety of context:
- Webform with http://www.agencexml.com/xsltforms that sounds more
portable than the Mozilla addon
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/824
- Android form via ODK http://code.google.com/p/open-data-kit/
- JavaME / JavaROSA form, etc.
I have not looked yet very precisely, but taking in account that
Talking papers would be based on Xforms, in addition of those already
mentioned, some tools already available would be:
- Open Office writer:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guides/Writer_Guide/XForms
This one do work offline, maybe an “Talking papers” addon in Openoffice
could be a good option…
- Oryx is browser based: http://bpt.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/Oryx/XForms /
http://code.google.com/p/oryx-editor/
I am looking forward to see soon a prototype that we could test & pilot
somewhere in the field.
Best regards,
Edouard
>>> On 16/02/2010 at 3:26 AM, in message
<dbafb7c8-4f53-48a5...@15g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Kirkpatrick <rgkirk...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Talking Papers colleagues,
My apologies for the hiatus in communications. Things have been a bit
complex on this end, between relocating to the East Coast, starting a
new job, and dealing with a back injury. I know Haiti has been a
focus for many on this list as well. I just posted a response to
Kuang's thoughtful comments, which I'm embarrassed to note date back
to December.
We're getting interest from others in seeing this project move forward
as soon as possible. I'll direct their comments here.
Chris, the matrix codes idea is indeed interesting. How might you
imagine such codes would be used? As I recall, these co
des are
designed to contain a reference such as a URL, vs the data itself.
Might such a code be useful to refer to an online copy of the schema,
from which the schema in the paper form might or might not diverge?
What if a matrix code (printed as a flyer? laminated?) could be
attached to a site or facility AFTER a Talking Papers / Walking
Paper's form were completed, containing a unique, randomly URL pre-
encoded into the blank Talking Paper's form at the time of generation,
that would always point to the data collection where a copy of the
data should eventually reside?
In terms of deployments, isn't Walking Paper's already being deployed
there?
Edouard, you had a few ideas for deployment as well, no?
Yes, the drupal form-builder in interesting in its approach. I think
the principles of doing one thing only, doing it simply, and doing it
well are important. As with so many aspects of a project like Talking
Papers, there are many pre-existing systems with components that could
be customized to address an aspect of the requirements, but they each
come with baggage. If we do choose to go the route of building our
own formsbuilder -- which I personally favor -- the approach Nathan
took with this drupal module makes sense for our forms-builder as well
(aside from the dependency on drupal, that is).
I'll talk to some of my former colleagues in the disaster relief
world who are now working in Haiti and brainstorm about ways Talking
Papers could help.
Robert
Robert Kirkpatrick
component work? How encapsulated is it from the rest of Trisano?
What format are form designs represented in? How about the data they
capture? I'd love to know more about the approach you have taken!
Could you refer us to documentation on your form builder?
Thanks very much,
Robert Kirkpatrick
On Feb 16, 10:18 am, Mike Herrick <mherric...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I'm guessing it's not the right fit, but I figured I'd mention it since form
> builders are being discussed.
>
> I'm a contributor tohttp://www.trisano.organ open source, citizen-focused
> surveillance and outbreak management system.
>
> We built and maintain an extensive form builder tool for this application.
> It's targeted at being a point of flexibility in a large system that has
> both a transaction system and a data warehouse. Forms in TriSano complement
> what we call "Core Data" for diseases, places, contacts, etc.
>
> If a green field effort is started to build a form bulider tool for
> talkingpapers, we'd be happy to share some lessons learned or the code
> (TriSano is Ruby & Java Based).
>
> Mike
> Portland, Oregon
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 6:03 AM,
> <talkingpap...@googlegroups.com<talkingpapers%2Bnoreply@googlegroups.com>
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> > Today's Topic Summary
>
> > Group:http://groups.google.com/group/talkingpapers/topics
>
> > - haiti codes <#126d717a0c92f2cd_group_thread_0> [4 Updates]
>
> > Topic: haiti codes<http://groups.google.com/group/talkingpapers/t/e781ae8b1183b70c>
>
> > Robert Kirkpatrick <rgkirkpatr...@gmail.com> Feb 15 06:26PM -0800 ^<#126d717a0c92f2cd_digest_top>
> > Chris Blow <cgb...@gmail.com> Feb 15 08:40PM -0800 ^<#126d717a0c92f2cd_digest_top>
>
> > Yikes, hope you are feeling better Robert! And congratulations on the
> > new position.
>
> > Thanks for the update.
>
> > I am also in the process of moving -- back to the Bay Area, if anyone
> > can get together. I'm likely going to be unavailable for work on
> > talkingpapers until I get settled in early March. If anyone can meet
> > in San Francisco, I think it would be great to work on this in person.
>
> > c
>
> > Chris Blow
>
> > On Feb 15, 2010, at 6:26 PM, Robert Kirkpatrick wrote:
>
> > "Edouard Legoupil" <LEGOU...@unhcr.org> Feb 16 09:52AM +0100 ^<#126d717a0c92f2cd_digest_top>
> > http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/SimpleActivitySchema/IDML_09...
>
> > -http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/Reporting/idmlReporting.xsd
>
> > It failed to become a standard for the "who's doing what where"
> > directory but the technology, at that time, was not as mature as it is
> > nowadays. The “People Finder Interchange Format” (http://zesty.ca/pfif/
> > ) is a good example of the new opportunities:
> > http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Person_Finder
>
> > What has changed is that the Xforms, build out of those XSD, would be
> > then deployable in a variety of context:
> > - Webform withhttp://www.agencexml.com/xsltformsthat sounds more
> > portable than the Mozilla addon
> > https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/824
> > - Android form via ODKhttp://code.google.com/p/open-data-kit/
> > - JavaME / JavaROSA form, etc.
>
> > I have not looked yet very precisely, but taking in account that
> > Talking papers would be based on Xforms, in addition of those already
> > mentioned, some tools already available would be:
> > - Open Office writer:
>
> > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guid...
> > This one do work offline, maybe an “Talking papers” addon in Openoffice
> > could be a good option…
> > - Oryx is browser based:http://bpt.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/Oryx/XForms/
> > http://code.google.com/p/oryx-editor/
>
> > I am looking forward to see soon a prototype that we could test & pilot
> > somewhere in the field.
>
> > Best regards,
> > Edouard
>
> > >>> On 16/02/2010 at 3:26 AM, in message
> > <dbafb7c8-4f53-48a5-84a6-2500d36be...@15g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Edouard Legoupil" <LEGOU...@unhcr.org> Feb 16 12:05PM +0100 ^<#126d717a0c92f2cd_digest_top>
>
> > Hi,
>
> > I forgot to mention:http://www.orbeon.com/forms/orbeon-form-builder
> > for a form builder platform...
>
> > Edouard
>
> > >>> On 16/02/2010 at 9:52 AM, in message
> > <4B7A6ADE.DEF6.00E...@unhcr.org>, "Edouard Legoupil"
> > <LEGOU...@unhcr.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi Patrick,
>
> > As said since the start, I believe that concept such as talking papers
> > would really fill a gap in terms of data collection the field.
>
> > The few colleagues, data manager in the field, I told about this
> > project were all enthusiastic. I hope we will soon be able to take the
> > opportunity of such momentum.
>
> > From a field perspective, we would have roughly three situations were
> > we could use such system:
>
> > - Site assessment: (some examples from the field here:
> > http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/IMToolBox/web/05_Asmt.html)
> > - Peoples of concerns / beneficiary registration
> > - Household survey
>
> > I am currently looking at building a xsd for each of those contexts.
> > There area already a lot of lessons learnt. The question is how to
> > ensure that forms will benefit from the de facto standards without
> > becoming too rigid at the same time. It is extremely difficult to get
> > diverse organizations to agree on a common schema and It is
> > counterproductive for a central authority to impose arbitrary standards
> > by fiat. Keeping a balance between the need for standard and the need
> > of
> > the real world imply to find a way to integrate all forms without
> > having
> > central authority (a kind of pipeline that would be enrich directly the
> > main schema). That might be one of the big challenges of this form
> > designer...
>
> > A few years ago, an interesting project, the IDML, International
> > Development Markup Language, has been aimed at building an xsd for
> > project directory and reporting:
> > -
>
> > http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/SimpleActivitySchema/IDML_09...
>
> > -http://www.huesemann.org/XML/Schema/IDML/Reporting/idmlReporting.xsd
>
> > It failed to become a standard for the "who's doing what where"
> > directory but the technology, at that time, was not as mature as it is
> > nowadays. The “People Finder Interchange Format” (http://zesty.ca/pfif/
> > ) is a good example of the new opportunities:
> > http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Person_Finder
>
> > What has changed is that the Xforms, build out of those XSD, would be
> > then deployable in a variety of context:
> > - Webform withhttp://www.agencexml.com/xsltformsthat sounds more
> > portable than the Mozilla addon
> > https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/824
> > - Android form via ODKhttp://code.google.com/p/open-data-kit/
> > - JavaME / JavaROSA form, etc.
>
> > I have not looked yet very precisely, but taking in account that
> > Talking papers would be based on Xforms, in addition of those already
> > mentioned, some tools already available would be:
> > - Open Office writer:
>
> > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guid...
> > This one do work offline, maybe an “Talking papers” addon in Openoffice
> > could be a good option…
> > - Oryx is browser based:http://bpt.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/Oryx/XForms/
> > http://code.google.com/p/oryx-editor/
>
> > I am looking forward to see soon a prototype that we could test & pilot
> > somewhere in the field.
>
> > Best regards,
> > Edouard
>
> > >>> On 16/02/2010 at 3:26 AM, in message
> > <dbafb7c8-4f53-48a5-84a6-2500d36be...@15g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
> > Robert- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -