Ushahidi Deployment - Assessment Toolbox

COMMUNITY USER EDUCATIONAL TOOL
TOOLBOX #1
SELF-ASSESSMENT

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
TIPS: A Ushahidi project doesn’t start with setting up the platform and putting it on-line. You need to prepare your strategy, study the context, understand the implications, secure cooperation and knowledge of the tool for all the actor involved. The launch of the platform is the last step of the project, not the first one. (AnahiAyala Iacucci)

Tips on using these toolbox documents:
These toolboxes are in beta (draft). We are using this content to test for the final web and print versions toolboxes. Please provide feedback.
Print documents do not include the extra notes which appear in the online versions.
Online documents will show rotating tips, which are shown as extra comments in the notes field.

TOOLBOX 1
SELF- ASSESSMENT
Helping you take the first steps to determine if the Ushahidi platform is a fit for your project
Learn about Ushahidi
Find out if Ushahidi will fit into your project goals & objectives
Think about partnerships for your project
Identify the information, communication and technology needs for your project
Think about what resources are necessary to make your project successful

Let’s Begin…..
First Name:____________
Last Name: ____________
Are you an individual or part of an organization?
 Organization
 Individual
Email Address:___________________
Organization Name: ____________

You can use the Ushahidi Platform for information collection and sharing, visualization and interactive mapping. There have been over 3000 uses of Ushahidi/Crowdmap. Here are some common types of uses of the Ushahidi platform (Ushahidi video introduction) (FAQs).. And more
Deployments
Ushahidi Prototype
Haiti Crisis Map
Uk Riot Cleanup
Chicago Blizzard
Japan Earthquake
Hot Flash
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For emergencies like natural disasters, unexpected events….(more text here).
Slow Burn
For ongoing or complex emergencies, to track changes in communities or responding agencies …. (crime mapping?)
icon
War on Gaza
DRC
Zim Political Crisis
Point on a Calendar
icon
For events like election monitoring, media campaigns with ending dates…. (more text)
Uchaguzi-Kenya
Sudan Vote Monitor
Unsung Peace Heroes
Long Term
icon
Voice of Kibera
KANCO (health)
Uchaguzi-Kenya
For ongoing programs and initiatives (human rights monitoring, media, environmental mapping, local gov mapping, resource mapping )
EXAMPLES..

Tips on Thinking about How Ushahidi Will help your Project
Here are some things you might want to think about before you start using the platform…..
This toolbox will help you answer many of these questions..
Who is your target audience?
What is the incentive/motivation for people to use your platform?
How is mapping going to contribute to your project?
How are you collecting and using data now?
Do you just want to use a new cool and free tool? Is there a gap you are trying to fill?

Project Goals and Objectives
What are the project goals? (user enters text here)
What are the project objectives? (user enters text here)
Example Goals
Violence Against Children Project
Voice of Kibera
Uchaguzi Kenya
Example Objectives
Uchaguzi Kenya
What kind of project are you working on? (please check all that apply)
 Health
 Water and Sanitation
 Media
 HIV/AIDS
Environment/Conservation
Women’s Issues
War/Conflict
Natural Disasters
Human Rights
TIPS: How will you achieve your goals? How will the collected information achieve the goal.
 Children and Youth
 Education
 Gender Based Violence
Economic Development
Security/Protection
Political Violence
Elections/Election Monitoring
 Other, please describe______
Is this a new or existing project?
new
Is this a development or humanitarian/crisis project? (definitions and examples)
 Development/Governance
Humanitarian/Crisis
Community Programming
Other
old

Expected Outcomes/Impact
Your project/program’s goals and objective are:
With the goal to _____Users can correct the auto- inserted text here________.
The program/project objectives are Users can correct the auto- inserted text here__.
icon
Type
What are the expected outcomes/impact?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
How will the Ushahidi platform help you achieve your expected outcomes/impact?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
TIPS: How will you achieve your expected outcomes?

Mapping and Visualization
Why use a map? What is the benefit of using mobiles or mapping to track your information? The information does not need to be crisis related. You might want to map existing community resources within a geographic area or raise awareness of local events (Linda Rafferty).
Mapping data is important for creating responsibility. The fact that people see their report it is the biggest motivation to engage them.-Oscar Salazar - Cuidemos el Voto
Mapping information will benefit your project by:
What kind of information will you map? How do you intend to use it?
Who do you want to view the map?
The mapping system in Ushahidi is not automatic: you need to geo-reference information manually. You can do it at the admin level with volunteers or other people. If you plan to use it as a crowd-source system, you need to have a big number of people mapping those messages, or you need to do it only by web-submission (it means also forget about the media monitoring, SMS, e-mails and twitter submissions). What level of precision does the mapping require? Do you want data points or data areas? (Anahi Ayala Iacucci)
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case studies
instance sites
Blogs/media
Learn more…

Technology and “the rest”- Allocating Time
Our users’ experience to date has humbled us to realized that the much of the success from organizations using the Ushahidi platform comes from the project planning and preparation around the technology itself……
Just because you bought a domain name and ran the Ushahidi installer doesn’t mean that anyone is going to use the system — and even if you somehow get a lot of reports, you might not be relevant to the existing systems (that is, all the other people who are working on the same problem). So as Ory said in Cape Town, “Don’t get too jazzed up! Ushahidi is only 10% of solution.”
Systems like Ushahidi have turned enormous communication barriers into a trivial installation and training process. But there is a whole other 90% of real work. (Chris Blow)
Let’s continue on with that 90%
.......and identify potential partners in your project.
Learn More:
Why technology is 10%-Anahi Ayala Iacucci
Allocation of Time –Chris Blow

Partnerships & Your Audience
Partnerships and your audience are key to the success of your project.
What roles will they play?
TIPS- Which partner will provide the overall project manager. Will it be your organization?
Who are you partners? (listing)
TIPS- One of the major partners in project is a technical administrator. If you envision customizing your instance a lot you should think about having a developer as a partner if you do not have one in your organization.
Who are your Audiences? Why do you think they will use your platform?
TIPS-One of the fundamental partsof your project is the definition of your audience. Who do you want to visit the site and use your information and who you want to be yourreporters?
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Trust & Partnerships
The crowd as your partner
Learn more…

Information
Your Ushahidi instance will help you collect, organize and communicate information for the goals of your project
(existing Project)- What information are you currently collecting? What information do you want to add with this project?
(new project) What information do you want to collect?
How will this information allow the project to achieve it’s goals?
IMPORTANT!
What is the existing information flow and how the information flow you propose will change or modify the existing one? The idea is that the more you modify the existing information flow the less your project will be successful.
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Type
case studies
blogs/articles
instance sites
Learn more…
TIPS: Does someone else have existing indicators or initiatives or information needs or formats that you should be linking in with and following or supporting? (Linda Raftree)

Communication
Your Ushahidi instance will help you collect, organize and communicate information for the goals of your project. Collecting information into platform is only half the battle, how will you communicate information to your audience? Partners? Media?
From earlier in this toolbox, this is your audience:( slide 11) ______________________________________________________
How do you plan to tell people about your project and how to send information into the platform?  Television Advertisements Radio  Newspaper Flyers
 Internet
How do you plan share the information with your audience?
Example
“The people who Media Focus on Africa Foundation are targeting do not have Internet access - We want to bring the results back to the people using mass media.” As a result of MFAF’s goals, Internet is only one part of the larger project and campaign. This is not only true for the Unsung Peace Heroes campaign but for all of MFAF’s work. Butterfly Works uses multiple media types in their work as well so the multimedia approach for Unsung Peace Heroes was familiar to both organizations and important to achieving their goals. Butterfly Works and MFAF used a multimedia approach, including a website, newspaper ads, radio and television appearances, participation in live events and word-of-mouth. (Melissa Tully)
icon
Type
SMS
Othe
word of mouth
Morning shows
Twitter
Facebook
case studies
Learn more…
blogs/articles
TIPS: think about how your audience commonly views/accesses information)- and what way they are most likely to view information during a crisis.

Your Campaign, Messaging and Communication Strategy
Very important too is also the communication strategy of the organization, which should explains what the platform is and what it isnot.(Anahi Ayala Iacucci)
The communication strategy can be:
Announcement of the project/service
Setting expectations
Plan for responding to individual messages
Communicating information to different audiences
The Unsung Peace Heroes project in Kenya used a multimedia publicity strategy, including placing ads in the newspaper, making TV and radio appearances, handing out fliers, participating in local peace events and having an online presence, to spread the work about their project and to collect nominations of Peace Heroes throughout Kenya. This strategy allowed them to target various diverse audiences and in the end they received over 500 nominations for Unsung Peace Heroes throughout Kenya.
(Melissa Tully)
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Type
How will you inform the crowd about your project?
How will you communicate with your partners/audience?
case studies
Learn more…
blogs/articles
TIPS Be sure that you get clearly the message out: what you want to do, why and if the issue is urgent or not.
Example materials

Information Communication Technology (ICT), Privacy and Security
Information Security and Privacy can be a very important consideration for many projects that use the Ushahidi Instance. We encourage you and your organization to think about how the Ushahidi instance may affect community/organization safety, and the impact that mapping and information will have on your audience and partners.
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Type
If you answer yes to any of these questions, or feel that this topic is important to your project -- we encourage you to take the mini assessment tool here……….
Will your project be dealing with sensitive information?
Will your project potentially place the users or partners at risk?
Does the government strictly control information in your project area?
Are you prepared to address any information/ privacy breaches if they should happen? Who
will be responsible?
Take the assessment now.
case studies
instance sites
blogs/articles
Learn more…

Technology
Ushahidiisasoftware, which means it requires access to certain technologies.
What is the local use of ICT in the country?
How do people in the community use
the internet and mobile phones?
TIPS- How do your partners and audience communicate now? What are they comfortable using? (cell phones, sms, internet) What do they have access to and can afford?
Take the tech assesment!
Learn more…
case studies
blogs/articles

Resources & Funding
Here are some tips to think about when looking for funding to support your project or idea:
‣ How does my proposal address the problem?
‣ What are the goals and objectives of the program?
‣ What is the budget and timeline for the project?
‣ Can you partner with others for non-financial
support?
‣ How will the project be sustainable?
‣ Is there a geographic focus?
(funders often support specific locations)
‣ What are the expected outcomes and how
will you measure them?
Funding Uses
Examples of how you might use your funding:
‣ Funding a SMS shortcode number to allow people to send free SMS
‣ Funding an SMS alert campaign
‣ Funding a web designer to customize your Ushahidi deployment
‣ Funding a PR campaign: newspaper ads, online ads, to raise awareness about your Ushahidi instance
‣ Funding a data entry resource if you are migrating existing data into the Ushahidi platform
TIPS: Have a clear budget and take into account advertisement campaign, dev work, PHONE EXPENSES if you use SMS and alerts, server space, and time to dedicate to the project. Also fundamental, have a monitoring &evaluation line in the budget and in your project plan and do periodical review of the project according to goals. (Anahi Ayala Iacucci)

ResourcesHere are some resources that you may need. Fill out the cost that you will need too
TIPS
Make sure you have a clear budget and think about the resources that will you need for your project.
TIPS
“Find out about any potential licenses you might need, for example for holding a competition, this can often be bureaucratic and take time to organise. NOTE Calculate time for the design and printing or production of all your materials, making a website or flyer and printing it can take a few weeks.
(Butterfly Works Toolbox)

Planning & Project timeline
Planning your project, and allowing enough time to prepare for volunteers, customization, campaigns, and partner/community engagement will make you project more successful.
TIPS
If you are looking to gather, share and make decisions with many different people & partners.
Consider:
Planning meetings& workshops early to make sure that all partners have similar expectations and understand their roles/responsibilities
- Plan your media/advertising campaigns early, determine the cost, and how you will inform people of your project and set expectations.
PROJECT EXAMPLES
ELECTION MONITORING
Staff and Volunteers for the Uchaguzi Kenya Project ( 2010 Kenya Referedum) – recommend 3-6 months for planning around a specific election days.
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Type
Example project timelines
blogs/articles
Learn more…

Below is information about your project that you entered in the first toolbox
(On the online tool, what you have filled out in the previous panels will automatically show up here!)
Project Goal/Objectives/anticipated impact
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Reasons for mapping
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Partnerships
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Information/Communication
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Marketing Media Plan
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Technology Assessment
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
I would like to make changes…..
Let’s move on!

THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING TOOLBOX #1!
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!

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Ushahidi Deployment - Assessment Toolbox

by Ushahidi on Sep 21, 2011

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Ushahidi Deployment - Assessment Toolbox — Presentation Transcript