● What is your role at the Climate Center? Can you tell us about your day to day schedule? The mentor at Graham. Managing the general stuff, i.e. the Dow fellowship. The website manage the application process of those fellowships, and the website has the function of upgrade the project ­ if thats a project based application. Also non­student scholarships. The process range from application­funding­project management. 8,000 registered users in the sites. The site also has events where people can log in and register. Outside Graham, David handles the Planet Blue website, it is a student, faculty, staff website. The main mission is to try to encourage students to be more sustainable. The tags in this building comes from the “save energy” project. Managing the database ­ how many people got funding, where are they from, who are they, etc., and write reports based on those data. ● What languages / tools / frameworks should we be using to develop the site? Is there a way for us to continue adjust the features/content of the website? ○ We think it is Drupal, HTML, CSS, javascript D: what is the adaptation database? A: it is just an inventory. The idea of this project is not just use the CIAT itself, but also make it usable to other sites. We are trying to avoid taking pieces from the CIAT. M: from Omar: excel ­ csv ­ mysql D: Is the end result a webpage of a list of strategies that are downloadable M: rt now they are printable, and people may want the links to a plan. A: (explaining the CIAT tool to David) the current report has the strategies …. which are from the city document/website…. D: Is there a keyword search? A: No. D: Can we search by document type? A: there are 10­20 types. D: Would it be useful to have a filter by document type? by action type? A: the action type may not be usable, adding the document type could be helpful. The main thing today is that we want to recreate the database, so that when Omar leaves, we can still maintain and update the dataset. We also try to make the database to appear on other website, and continue to grow and make the database to be current and relevant. D: the concern for me is having the data in two databases, it is already in the current csv. We may be able to put it in a database where the GLISA hosts its data. The GLISA uses MySQL that ITS hosts​
. A: could they build something like CIAT, but simpler? D: the data can stay on CIAT A: but right now it is building in the code of CIAT. Every time when Omar update the tool, he has to copy, upload, and reload the whole thing. (proved to be easier later by Omar.) D: we need to talk about what the tool looks like. M: showing the mockup, left is the filter, on the right the result will be changing while you change the filter. O: when updating, it is just simple command. D: We can build a new tool and this current part of the CIAT can link to the new tool. A: that could work. Or the end of this year we can move away from this, and make CIAT 2.0 that points to more national climate adaptation strategy. D: Graham uses drupal, it is build around entity and content, each entity can have any number of fields associate with it. In this case, we are creating a climate strategy entity, we will have a field for the things we saw on the spreadsheet so we can filter with. Graham website ­ start with RFPs, there are 240+ fields. For example the “student project” entity, you can search by keywords.. We do the same thing for searching for people and other things. A: a form that can help populate the database? It is on the climate center page ­ learn more ­­ and there is a link to it: the submitting strategy form. D: I suggest a new content type, come up with the fields we want using that spreadsheet as a starting point, and we use the front end form of where people can find the strategies. And updating is simple, just like the “student project” tab, if I want to change sth, I just find the things I want to change, and then change it, and save it, and it will reflect in the system. For CIAT, you could create “add entity” or “add content” form. We are doing sth similar in the planet blue site, everyone can add stuff but they are unpublished, and the stuff can publish it. S: we want a space in there that is not live and take the mockup to try it on there. D: thats tricky and doable. How much control do you want over that querying portion? would you want to do it yourself, or with me? I can’t just open up a “views???” bc it will open up all kinds of administrator thing. We can create the content site, then we modify it together, you cannot add things like I want to quer this like this. Or if you want to quer everything, we can build a brand new drupal site that is sitting on Graham, we have a couple of those sites. First is the “stars”, it sits under graham, we can give you full access, but it won’t be together with the Graham site. The tradeoff is that it is another site to maintain. The two ways are both as easy. S: is there a way to merge? D: we hope it can stay where is starts, but there are ways to merge. But rt now, I suggest building it using the Graham base, rather than a separate site. First, we need to know for each strategy, what fields are possible and what types of data it needs. There are a couple of ways that drupal stores related data. There is a list that can change over time, and put tags to categorize data, and other themes can reference current lists, and make them connected. Next steps: 1. the fields, the options. M: we start with the first sheet in the current excel. ● We’re not developers, but can offer ideas and possibly mock something up. What do you think? What would be most helpful for you? D: I have little time.. A: What do you guys need his help for? David, can you spend some time to train them? D: Let me talk to Don Ju? And then we can talk about the best way to move forward. Drupal is not simple to learn, but not super complex either. If we have the “fields”, we can start building that in and get start it. It’s just the field setup and the query page. I will send you an email about what I need. And I will figure out how much time I need to spend. Drupal is basically a query generator. Please follow up an email making sure the contents of the strategy database. We can sit down together and create the query. ● What is your availability for helping us develop the site itself? Can we get your help and feedback as we develop the project further? ● Is there anyone else we could get help with the coding from? ● We understand you built the adaptation strategy submission form. Can you tell us more about how it works? Does it connect directly to the database? If not, is there a way that it could? ● Any other technical issues we should be aware of? ● Set us up with a development site?