Research and gather a list of climate change citizen science applications & data

The Goal Climate change affects current and future generations; adaptation and risk mitigation is necessary. In 2019 we set out to research how software can help deal with the impacts. With the advent of new technologies for environmental monitoring and tools for sharing information, citizens are more and more engaged in collecting environmental data, and many environmental agencies are using these data. A significant challenge, however, is that data users, such as federal, state, and local agencies, are sometimes skeptical about the quality of the data collected by citizen science organizations. We would like you to help us research, and gather data on international citizen science software applications & data sources (eg. open source projects, marketplaces, and applications). Research on how citizen science new technologies collect, analyze and report environmental data, this information will be saved on a template which we will provide.

Using software to help communities prepare/respond/recover from coastal erosion

The Goal With coastal erosion hazards predicted to increase globally, data to inform decision-making on erosion mitigation and adaptation strategies is becoming critical. However, gathering data over wide geographical areas is expensive and time-consuming and often requires highly trained professionals and scientists. We would like you to explore how software solutions can allow individuals who lack formal scientific training to meaningfully contribute to coastal erosion and ocean storm-related research projects as “citizen scientists”. In this project, you will research common risks and problems caused by the impact of coastal erosion and ocean storms, and how climate change will affect those. Then, examine how citizen scientists can help evaluate/ prepare for/mitigate/respond to these problems. What kind of websites or software can assist them in these efforts?

Website SEO Optimization

The Goal Climate change affects current and future generations; adaptation and risk mitigation is necessary. In 2019 we set out to research how software can help deal with the impacts. We have 3 (WordPress-created) websites that support our climate change project and we would like to promote better on search engines: 1. https://fight.climatechange.ca/ (our main climate change research) 2. http://www.deploy.solutions (our public website) 3. http://thanks.deploy.solutions (our thank you website) We are looking for students to help us with SEO optimization on the website content of any ONE of these sites (or one site per team, if you like) and improve our positioning. - Pick a site and review our content, themes, & site structure - Create and document the SEO Strategy - Conduct keyword research and analysis and use SEO guidelines to optimize content and keywords - Review our current WordPress website (content, backlinks, sitemaps, etc.) and suggest specific SEO updates for our websites/pages

Analyzing Deploy Solutions carbon footprint to get to Net Zero

The Goal Carbon Trust states that “A carbon footprint measures the total greenhouse gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by a person, organization, event or product.” Our carbon footprint relates to the impact our organization has on the environment. Our employees work remotely from their homes in different cities and use computers and online web services by Microsoft, Amazon, and other service providers. We would like you to help us analyze, identify and document steps to take in measuring and managing our business carbon footprint including that of our service providers so we can get to Net Zero.

Citizen Science Observation rules for Forest Fires

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after wildfires/bush fires. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the wildfires/bush fires or disaster scope and impact. Climate change is a key factor in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires around the world. We are developing a citizen science prototype for people living in fire prone areas to help predict the likelihood of wildfire and minimize their devastating effects. We would like you to adapt our existing Citizen Science Observation rules for Floods, to wildfires/bush fires.

Install, configure, and script, a prototype CKAN open data portal in AWS cloud

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. Install and configure, and document/script, a prototype implementation of CKAN open data portal (https://ckan.org/) in Amazon Web Services cloud, which would allow us to gather and share environmental data sets for our citizen science and climate change-related projects. Examples of our datasets are historical climate data for Ottawa region, social media URLs for flood volunteers in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, police stations, and fire station GPS locations and contacts around Ottawa-Gatineau region etc. When a user searches for such data, the relevant datasets will be displayed and visualized. Your Contribution Demonstrate, with a working prototype, how CKAN can be setup in AWS cloud to store and display our data sets. Ensure that the prototype can be reproduced in our environment using installation and configuration documentation and/or scripts. (We use Terraform to deploy AWS cloud components but are not expecting you to provide such scripts – however if you can, bonus!)

“Trust model” for verifying citizens scientists' observations

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are building a software prototype that allows citizens to submit photos and other "ground truth" observations to the Trusted Authorities, during/after floods. Please research and recommend a “trust model” – a set of processes that we can use in the citizen science web application defining a “veracity” or trust score to citizen scientists and their observations. This will help us determine how much oversight / weight the trusted authorities should place on citizen scientists' submitted observations. We would like assistance with defining how "Trust" can be based on whether the citizen scientist undertook certain tutorials/performed certain actions/filled in their profile/confirmed their geographic location etc. Your Contribution We would like you research a trust model for verifying citizen contributions, so we can assign a trust rating that Trusted Authorities can apply to them. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features. Below are suggestions to consider: Participants were required to be legal age/18 years or older to select a public username. Recommendation System to calculate trust based on the user's profile and history Evaluate community trust – members of the network assign trust rankings to other members or users can assign rank based on the quality and consistency of uploads Repeated interactions between those involved in citizen science, as well as perceptions of transparency, fairness, and legitimacy are important prerequisites for building or maintaining trust (Lauber, 1999; Fernandez-Gimenez et al., 2008).

Citizen science badge/gamification incentives

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are in the design and planning phase of a new citizen science prototype. In order to make it effective and easy to use, we would like to add gamification (points, badges, levels, social feedback, etc). We would like you to research gamification concepts and systems and then propose a gamification system to suit our application (ex points or badges for safely taking and sharing observations or photos during or after a flood disaster). Your work should be able to showcase: An increase in safely completed citizen climate observations An increase in citizen usage of the in-app action tracking and reporting An increase in citizen contribution to community action projects Review and recommend observations from https://scistarter.badgr.com/public/badges/6Jg_IwmfQTaJ2kUNePsO5Q Research on both intrinsic motivation (learning, developing skills, interest in environment, and social exchanges resulting in inherent satisfaction and extrinsic motivation (scoreboards and social rewards) How to ensure: - Citizens science volunteers feel that they are valued members of the team - Citizens science volunteers receive feedback and thanks and feel their work has contributed to help the community deal with the disaster Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity in all aspects of the gamification process: research, analysis, iteration, prototyping, presentation and evaluation. We would like you research the various gamification concepts, trends, issues, and solutions that are used in web apps such as FitBit, Facebook, video games, etc...then design a customized gamification system for our citizen science prototype website. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Recommend feature & design changes to our prototype to help with forest fires

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We would like you to explore and document any recommendations and functionality/design modifications needed to extend our citizen science prototype, focused on floods, to help during a different type of disaster: Forest fires. We will provide screenshots and demos of our current flood prototype to help you understand and research any needed modifications. You should take into account the different needs of individuals or communities affected by forest fires, but while trying not to require us to change the existing prototype user interface, user experience, and customer journey too much. Create wireframes or mock-ups to represent the user interface changes that you think are needed to handle a forest fire disaster. Your Contribution You will be able to showcase an understanding of software design that will : Identify and recommend necessary feature/design changes to make our flood-focused prototype assist during or after a forest fire Create wireframes and mockups that show us how “citizen scientists” would use their mobile devices to (safely) conduct controlled in-situ observations during or after a forest fire disaster, that they can then upload and send to trusted authorities and data scientists. At the start of the project, we will provide a walk-through of our existing flood-focused prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals, and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes as a starting point for you.

Define the training requirements for citizen scientist web app users

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We intend to train "citizen scientists" (users) on safely taking and submitting flood disaster observations using our citizen science web application prototype. What is the best approach and method to conduct the training? Focus on what is relevant to them Be clear what on what objectives your citizen science tutorial is focused on achieving Choose appropriate methods to educate your target citizen scientist audience. Based on the information we'll provide, students will develop a training requirements action plan and supporting materials, which can include ready-to-use templates, processes, strategy, and high-level training design that will support the training of users (citizen scientists). The training should also focus on ensuring that citizens scientists can safely take and submit observations that are scientifically accurate/useful. This can be achieved by addressing issues such as conflict of interest and personal biases, following guides, tools, and templates that have been developed to promote research integrity from start to finish. Examples of things to consider include: The role of experiential learning in training citizen scientists Completed life cycle journey map Strategy and templates which will improve training results Interviews and questionnaire/Quiz to assess trainee readiness and knowledge High-level design of training materials Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity in all aspects of the training requirements design process: research, analysis, iteration, presentation and evaluation. You will be able to improve our understanding of the best approach, methods, and tools to train citizen scientists/users on safely taking observations using our citizen science web application prototype. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Help plan a virtual design hackathon for a Citizen Scientist web app

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. Deploy Solutions is in the design and planning phase of a new citizen science web application that will enable the citizen Citizens to submit photos and other "ground truth" observations to the Trusted Authorities, during/after floods. Citizen science is scientific research conducted in whole or part by amateur or professional scientists. It involves public participation in research whose outcomes are advance public understanding of science/climate change disasters. As part of our work, we wish to create a design hackathon to help improve our user experience for citizen scientists. Help us plan a virtual hackathon which will attract participants and citizen science enthusiasts to contribute design ideas during a virtual hackathon. Things to consider include hackathon timings, messages to participants, judging and prizes, and ways to publicize the event and attract participants.

Help Organize an "Alpha test” for our Citizen Science climate-change app

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are in the design and planning phase of a new citizen science web application prototype. The goal of the prototype is to demonstrate a feedback loop between citizens and trusted authorities during climate change-affected natural disasters, such as flood. We need to enlist citizen scientists, NGOs and trusted authorities to help evaluate how useful and easy to use our prototype features are. We plan to perform two citizen science simulations over the course of our overall project. The first one will be a limited “alpha”, likely run in Ottawa (although student assistance can be done remotely). It is intended to test our early functionality, course-correct any issues or gaps, and identify the required simulation participants, test scripts, training, communication, coordination, and identify how best to evaluate the results. We therefore need help planning, communicating with interested parties, and holding the event with them to capture the alpha/beta test feedback. Your Contribution This is an "alpha software test event" conducted with with citizen scientists, NGOs, and other interested third parties.Contribute research, event coordination, marketing and communications, and logistical help as we organize the alpha test. Help us prepare and use surveys / questionnaires to capture the alpha test feedback from participants. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Design Test Strategy & Plan, Test cases for a citizen science web application

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. Help research and create a set of tests that are effective in validation and defect testing. Use your skills and creativity to make sure the web application meets the business and technical requirements that guided its design and developments, and works as expected. Your Contribution You will contribute to the prototype test strategy and plan by: Building a test plan to test the user experience of the Citizen Science side of the application Building a test plan to test the user experience of the Trusted Authority side of the application Identifying detailed test cases for the test plans Create a test case template and instructions to allow citizen scientists (non-technical people) to identify and report bugs and defects in the application. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Determine Web Accessibility options for a citizen science website

The Goal Research and document web accessibility standards that can apply to the citizen scientists web application we are building. Use your skills and creativity in all aspects of the design process to identify relevant web accessibility standards, determine which ones could/should apply to the two sections of our prototype (citizen scientist and trusted authority portal). Your Contribution Research and identify possible web accessibility standards Determine which should apply to our website/app and identify the overall user experience accessibility assessment and design Take our citizen prototype screenshots and create mockup HTML that meets WCAG and other accessibility standards Why climate solutions need to support web accessibility At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes.

Identify privacy & personal data issues relevant to a citizen science web app

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are building a web application prototype that citizen scientists that will use to safely take and submit photos and other "ground truth" observations to the Trusted Authorities, during/after floods and other climate change-related natural disasters. Citizen scientists will be taking images and uploading them to a website. We need to verify who they are and track their observation histories. So, we wish to carefully consider and balance trade-offs between the need to properly verify observations while protecting the privacy of the observers. For instance, citizen scientists may wish to have themselves removed from the system at some point, and we must consider how to do that while retaining some data such as the observations they uploaded. We want to ensure our data ownership and data rights to submitted observations are clearly stated and understood before citizen scientists upload any observation data. Do we need to anonymize the observations, and if so what needs to be anonymized? We would also like you to research and recommend on: What kind of volunteer agreements and terms may we need to enter into with citizen scientists? How does a citizen scientist request their account/data/history be removed? What is the process and considerations by which we remove a citizen scientist from the project? Research relevant Canadian and international laws and regulations related to privacy and data confidentiality Research existing citizen scientist projects for their privacy and personal data standards Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity in all aspects to research, identify, and recommend the policies, laws, and standards which might apply to the project, including any the privacy and personal data issues. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Create user guide for citizen scientists using our climate change web app

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are building a web application prototype that citizen scientists that will use to safely take and submit photos and other "ground truth" observations to the Trusted Authorities, during/after floods and other climate change-related natural disasters. We would like you to plan and create a draft digital user guide/handbook and supporting material that we can use to help citizen scientists who use the web application. The handbook should explain how a citizen scientist registers, safely takes and submits an observation, and acts on feedback (if any) from the Trusted Authorities who receive the observations. Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity in all aspects of the user guide design process: research, analysis, iteration, presentation, and evaluation.Your contributions will include technical writing of the draft. At the start of the project, we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals, and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Create user guide for Trusted Authorities using our climate change web app

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are building a web application prototype that citizen scientists that will use to safely take and submit photos and other "ground truth" observations to the Trusted Authorities (local NGOs and/or government officials), during/after floods and other climate change-related natural disasters. We would like you to plan and create a draft digital user guide/handbook and supporting material that we can use to help Trusted Authorities who use the web application. Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity in all aspects of the user guide design process: research, analysis, iteration, presentation, and evaluation.Your contributions will include technical writing of the draft. At the start of the project, we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals, and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features

Provide health & safety guidance for our flood-focused Citizen Scientist web app

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We are building a web application prototype that citizen scientists that will use to safely take and submit photos and other "ground truth" observations to the Trusted Authorities, during/after floods and other climate change-related natural disasters. Obviously we wish to ensure the health and safety of our citizen scientist observers by alerting them to potential threats to their individual safety while they take observations, and implementing appropriate safeguards. Importantly, citizen scientists do not benefit from the same labour laws or risk protection as those employed in traditional research settings. We therefore wish you to research and recommend the relevant health and safety processes that would apply to the actions of citizen scientist volunteers. These include at a minimum Ontario and Federal laws but should consider international standards and examples for other citizen science projects. Your Contribution Research and recommend all aspects of the health and safety issues, including relevant Canadian laws and practices, liability disclaimers, and other national and international practices that are relevant to citizen science projects. At the start of the project, we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals, and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Design a web/video tutorial to help Citizen Scientists use our web prototype

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change-related citizen science web prototype (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts"). The prototype will be a mobile-friendly website that allows citizens to take and submit photos and other “ground truth” observations to the Trusted Authorities, during /after floods. This information can be used to help the authorities assess and predict the flood or disaster scope and impact. We would like to have a short web tutorial/video created to help "citizen scientists" safely take and upload observations during or after a flood. The tutorial may cover : Minimum mobile device requirements to record flood observations Tips on the best use of video or photographic equipment to record flood observations Instructions on how to provide the most accurate and useful observation information Safety tips Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity in all aspects of the web tutorial design process: research, analysis, iteration, prototyping, presentation, and evaluation. You will be able to showcase an understanding of visual forms, communicating visually, research skills, creative problem-solving, creative analysis, and digital storytelling. Consider language and cultural issues while producing the web tutorial/video. Incorporate our existing brand and design elements to provide a consistent presentation and user experience. At the start of the project, we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its use case, goals, and objectives, and even detailed low-level fidelity wireframes. and other recommendations behind the proposed citizen science web application features.

Design Employee Guide and Ongoing Engagement Plan for Remote Staff

The Goal: We are hiring more staff and consultants to help us build various internal and client software projects. We all work remotely from each other, and we want our team to have the most positive and productive learning and work experience possible! We require a process, supporting documents like an employee handbook, and high-level implementation plan that we can do remotely, to help onboard our staff and keep them motivated while working remotely from each other. The new team member should learn about our company’s vision mission and values, understand our remote working standards and habits, as well as how to use and get help with the various tools and processes we follow for time-tracking, project management, reporting, etc. Potential Considerations (as well as any others you think of) What impression should new hires walk away with at the end of the first day? What do new staff need to know about our culture and work environment? What kind of tools are available for administrative and day-to-day tasks. How do they get started, how do they get help if needed? Is the process for new part-time contractors different than for full time employees? What role will the new hire's direct managers and co-workers play in the process? How will we gather feedback on the onboarding program and employee handbook and measure its success? How do we setup employees remotely to overcome the challenges associated with remote work. Introduce employees to a range of communication and productivity tools. Should we provide perqs (rewards etc) during this process, and if so what? Your Contribution We would like you to design a process, supporting documents, and high-level implementation plan that we will follow to integrate a new employee working remotely online with the company and its culture, and give them the tools and information needed to become a productive member of the team and bolster employee excitement and engagement even when working remotely. Your contribution will directly define how our company handles the first few days and months of a new employee's experience to ensure high job satisfaction, effective work habits, and long-term retention. We are excited about our projects and our work, and your creativity in helping us add new teammates is welcome and highly encouraged!

Create HR Job Description & On-boarding Materials for Junior Sales/Marketer Role

The Goal: We are planning on hiring a co-op or part-time student in a junior Sales/Marketing role in late 2020/early 2021. We need help creating HR Job Descriptions & On-boarding Materials for this role. Your Contribution We would like you help us by considering and producing material related to the position, including Human resource planning Recruitment and selection Orientation and training Career development Performance appraisal Financial compensation Employee benefits and services Occupational health and safety Please consider a) the role is entirely remote! and b) we will be hiring a student (therefore this may be a relatively short term position (4 to 8 months) followed by an offer of employment. Your contribution will directly define how we staff this role but also be useful to our other staffing needs. We are excited about our projects and our work, and your creativity in helping us add new teammates is welcome and highly encouraged!

Design On-boarding Process and Plan for New Remote Hires

The Goal: We are hiring more staff and consultants to help us build various internal and client software projects. We all work remotely from each other, and we want our team to have the most positive and productive learning and work experience possible! We require a process, supporting documents, and high-level implementation plan that we can do remotely, to effectively onboard new hires (including co-ops, recent graduates, and temporary contractors) to our company. The new team member should learn about our company’s vision mission and values, our remote working standards and habits, as well as the various tools and processes we follow for time-tracking, project management, reporting, etc. Potential Considerations (as well as any others you think of) Is the onboarding process a single event, or multiple? How long will the onboarding process last? What impression should new hires walk away with at the end of the first day? What do new staff need to know about our culture and work environment? Is the process for new part-time contractors different than for full time employees? What role will the new hire's direct managers and co-workers play in the process? What kind of goals do we want to set for new employees? How will we gather feedback on the onboarding program and measure its success? How do we setup employees remotely to overcome the challenges associated with remote work. Introduce employees to a range of communication and productivity tools. Should we provide perqs (rewards etc) during this process, and if so what? Your Contribution We would like you to design a process, supporting documents, and high-level implementation plan that we will follow to integrate a new employee working remotely online with the company and its culture, and give them the tools and information needed to become a productive member of the team and bolster employee excitement and engagement even when working remotely. Your contribution will directly define how our company handles the first few days and months of a new employee's experience to ensure high job satisfaction, effective work habits, and long-term retention. We are excited about our projects and our work, and your creativity in helping us add new teammates is welcome and highly encouraged!

Oct 2 to 4: Space Apps Ottawa Hackathon

NASA Space Apps Hackathon NASA International Space Apps Hackathon is an intense 48-hour global weekend hackathon for developers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, astronomers and enthusiasts. Teams from 212 cities around the world will form and build products and prototypes against NASA-designed challenges that leverage spacecraft, celestial & science data. Space Apps Ottawa This is our fourth year helping organize and sponsor Space Apps Ottawa, our local version of the NASA Space Apps event. We have additional challenges designed by the Canadian Space Agency and other federal organizations. This year our hackathon will be online! Learn more about Space Apps Ottawa on our website: http://www.spaceappsottawa.com/

Recommend a "Trust and Collaboration Framework" for a Climate Change Application

The Goal: We are designing a climate change impact planning software that helps Canadian citizens take personal action to avoid, mitigate, and recover from climate change impacts. Examples of recommended actions include steps to recover from home flooding damage, or how to prepare the family for an evacuation during a forest fire. These actions need to be provided and managed by "trusted authorities" (which will include faith groups, NGOs, scientists, academics, as well as government officials). The definition of "trusted authority" is obviously political and contentious (our working definition is included below). Please research and recommend a "trust and collaboration framework" - a set of processes that we can use to identify and verify the "trusted authorities" and the recommended actions they provide. When its comes to producing climate change actions expect trusted authorities from different organizations will have to work together in a particular region; therefore we also need a framework for them to collaborate (for example request and receive feedback on recommended tasks, and gain some kind of approval before those are published to the citizens). The Climate Change Product We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change impact planning software product (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts") . The product will recommend a set of actions that ordinary citizens can take to avoid, mitigate, adapt, or rebuild from climate change disasters. We have created prototype mobile and desktop applications and performed a great deal of technical and business research and proof of concepts and work continues on the feature set. Trusted Authority Definition (Working Definition - your work will probably influence this) Trusted authorities are: individuals or organizations; and Have exceptional, targeted knowledge and expertise of global warming and climate change issues, impacts, resilience and policy measures; and Can be reasonably expected to provide unbiased, apolitical advice; and Accept the currently-available scientific understanding of global warming and climate change, as described in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. Examples may include local councillors and city staff, urban planners, environmental and sustainability champions, and government officials at the provincial and federal levels, provided they meet the requirements listed above. It is possible for a "trusted authority" to become "untrusted" over time, or vice versa. Your Contribution We think this is a unique project that will require you to really exercise your skills and creativity to come up with a framework. You will be required to perform primary and secondary research and policy analysis of existing collaboration and trust processes and frameworks. Then make a recommendation on what kind of model we should implement in our software. We can't wait to see what you come up with! The content you produce will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ content licence) which enables others to use it for any purpose, with attribution to you.

Extract guidance and actions from Climate Change documents using Machine Learning

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change impact planning software product (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts") . The product will recommend a set of actions that ordinary citizens can take to avoid, mitigate, adapt, or rebuild from climate change disasters. Although there is a wealth of guidance information out there in PDFs or on websites, rather than go through those one by one, we want machine learning NLP and NLU techniques (and others?) to be applied that can automatically extract that kind of guidance from a PDF document or body of text. Your Contribution A previous class successfully produced a working prototype, using Amazon Web Services and python libraries, that is able to extract actions from PDF files and textual content. We would like you continue their work and extend their code to further improve the accuracy of this model, overcome some of the identified issues and challenges, explore some of the identified future enhancements, and also inject your own creativity and ideas. This is still exploratory and so we anticipate a few iterations where you produce some outputs, we examine those, and see how to structure the results into our proposed action structure. At the start of the project we will provide a set of PDF content, link to the code repository, give you an overview of the previous work, and anything else you need.

Gamification Business Case for Climate Change Impact Software

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change impact planning product (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts") . The product will be a desktop website and mobile app that will recommend a set of actions that ordinary citizens can take to avoid, mitigate, adapt, or rebuild from climate change disasters. In order to make it attractive and fun to use, we have been advised to add a gamification feature (points, badges, levels, social feedback, etc) to the proposed mobile and desktop applications. The feature design has not been worked out at all, but it might provide points for doing actions in your house to protect against climate disaster, helping out in your local area, being given badges for being prepared for a certain type of disaster, etc. Potential considerations for the gamifying feature man include, but are not limited to: An increase in completed citizen climate actions An increase in citizen usage of the in-app action tracking and reporting An increase in citizen contribution to community action projects An increase in the average time spent per user session Identifying which badges, and rewards should be competitive and which should be co-operative Identifying if any badges are national, provincial, or local/community Identifying which badge levels are available and how the process works Identifying which kind of social feedback is available and how the process works Before investing time and money in developing such a feature, we would like assistance researching and preparing a business case for the gamification feature, including research for likely implementation and ongoing administration costs, ROI, user experience improvements, and other analysis. As a stretch goal, you can look at gamification business cases to identify the costs of using commercially-available off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions vs customized development, and propose a high level implementation plan to roll out gamification feature in our application. Your Contribution We would like you research the various gamification concepts, trends, issues, and solutions that are used in web and mobile apps such as FitBit, Facebook, video games, etc...then make a well-reasoned, thorough, and well-referenced business case, for why a customized gamification system would benefit our future climate change product (or not!). The primary goal is producing a business case however in order to support that we would need to evaluate the implementation costs. Therefore we would also like to understand how others have gone about implementing gamification, the cost and availability of COTS vs custom solutions, and what kind of high level project plan is needed to roll out this feature (this assumes the business case would justify it). At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content. We will also provide a wealth of background material on the application, its overall business case, goals and objectives, and even detailed psychographic surveys and other recommendations behind the proposed gamification feature.

Design and build a new Android mobile app for a climate change application

The Goal: Create a prototype android mobile app for users of a climate change software product we are building. The Climate Change Product We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change impact planning software product (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts") . The product will recommend a set of actions that ordinary citizens can take to avoid, mitigate, adapt, or rebuild from climate change disasters. The initial focus is specifically on coastal erosion, flooding, and sea-level rise impacts. The Mobile App We need a mobile application that allows ordinary citizens to view actions they can take, track their progress, complete tasks, and upload proof (pictures and videos). They can also chat and request help from trusted authorities. The mobile app will be a prototype that helps us identify the actual mobile app requirements and design, and desired user experience. Some suggested content and features will be provided at the start of the project. The only real requirements are: 1) The app must work on popular phones using Android 9 Pie (or later) 2) We must be able to distribute the app via our website and/or email 3) Whatever solution you deliver and technical libraries you use must be compatible with the Apache 2.0 licence. Ultimately the content, layout, and technology are up to you - use your creativity! Your Contribution Use your skills and creativity to design and build the Android app. We can't wait to see what you come up with! The mobile app will be released under the open source Apache 2 licence which enables others (including yourselves) to use it for any purpose, with attribution. You will be able to showcase this app in your portfolio should you wish.

Gamification Study and Recommendations for Climate Change Impact Software

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change impact planning website (related to "UN Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts") . The portal will recommend a set of actions that ordinary citizens can take to avoid, mitigate, adapt, or rebuild from climate change disasters. In order to make it attractive and fun to use, we would like to add gamification (points, badges, levels, social feedback, etc). We would like assistance coming up with research on gamification concepts and systems and then a proposed gamification system to suit our application (ex points for doing actions in your house to protect against climate disaster, badges for being prepared for a certain type of disaster). Your Contribution We would like you research the various gamification concepts, trends, issues, and solutions that are used in web apps such as FitBit, Facebook, video games, etc...then design a customized gamification system for our prototype website. At the start of the project we will provide a walk-through of our prototype site and content, provide background research on user types and customer personas, high-level gamification analysis, some suggested marketing materials including surveys etc. Potential considerations for gamifying concept can include, but are not limited to: An increase in completed citizen climate actions An increase in citizen usage of the in-app action tracking and reporting An increase in citizen contribution to community action projects An increase in the average time spent per user session Identifying which badges, and rewards should be competitive and which should be co-operative Identifying if any badges are national, provincial, or local/community Identifying which badge levels are available and how the process works Identifying which kind of social feedback is available and how the process works

Prototype search application to index climate-change and environmental websites using structured metadata, and display the results

The Goal: Build a prototype website/search engine to help us index climate change and environmental websites and company information for a new climate change impact software product we are designing. The Project Climate change is becoming a top concern of citizens and governments around the world. We are in the planning and design stage for a new climate change impact planning and adaptation software product. We are performing a lot of market research and are expending a great deal of manual effort to identify relevant websites and organizations. At the same time, many websites now use rich microformats and semantic metadata to describe their articles, events, and company information. This information is captured in the Web Data Commons project (http://webdatacommons.org/structureddata/) which uses Common Crawl (https://commoncrawl.org/). We think it is possible to extract from the Web Data Commons a list of relevant websites, articles, events, and organizations, and put it in a database or elasticsearch index where we can view, search, and export it. Your Contribution Create a simple prototype to demonstrate what is possible. Connect to the Web Data Commons data set (if the data is too large we can setup an AWS environment for you in our account). Then using example keywords we provide, look relevant metadata and extract those results to a web page that indexes them by type (ex. web page, article, organization, event). Store the results in a database and/or elasticsearch index. Create the ability to query the results and export as CSV, or with the original structured metadata. The web prototype will be database- or search-index driven but have very limited functionality. The prototype will consist of a search display page showing the results, with filters. There may be a script to extract the results and place it in the database and/or search index. Possibly there will be one or two additional pages to handle exports or reporting (to be determined by yourselves). The prototype should ideally be built using Java or C# technologies, as well as a PostgreSQL database, plus related technologies where required (HTML 5, CSS/SASS, etc). We can discuss data export formats during the project (probably csv as well as JSON of the original structured metadata). Your prototype work will play an important role in the development of this tool.

Marketing Campaign Plan to enlist Local Citizens/NGOs/Municipal Governments in Canada for a Climate Change Impact software prototype

The Goal We are in the design and planning phase of a new climate change impact planning software product. We need to enlist local citizens/NGO's/municipal governments in a one or two Canadian regions to help evaluate the prototype features. We need a modern and creative marketing plan to communicate, sign up, and engage with them. The Product The forthcoming software product will use satellite Earth Observation imagery, big data, and artificial intelligence to identify past climate change impacts and predict future impacts. It will focus on ordinary citizens as well as trusted advisors (such as municipal governments) who need to understand and plan around climate change impacts without requiring them to know the underlying science or technology. The initial focus is likely on actions related to disasters such as flooding, coastal erosion, and sea-level rise impacts. The product development will be as open as possible and require a lot of collaboration with academic groups and scientific communities, as well as communities interested in and affected by climate change (especially flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise). However, to simplify the results we would initially like to focus on a few small regions/towns rather than seeking a broad population of users spread across the country. Your Contribution By the time this project begins we will have initial product branding goals, strategy, and guidelines, and substantial market research, which will assist you in your project effort. Your work will be instrumental in making these high level guidelines concrete and achievable. This will be an exciting new product in a new market so creativity is very welcome and in fact highly encouraged!