Evaluation Review Kit

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Table of Contents

1. Uchaguzi: A Case Study 2. Case Study: Unsung Peace Heroes / Building Bridges 3. Toolbox #1 – Self-Assessment 4. Toolbox #2 – Implementation 5. Toolbox #3 – Real-time Evaluation 6. Appendix: Evaluation Blog Series

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Uchaguzi: A Case Study Executive Summary

In 2010, Ushahidi collaborated with partners to create the Uchaguzi-Kenya platform (an Ushahidi instance). It provided a channel for Kenyan citizens to communicate openly about the 2010 Kenyan referendum. The project was a success and opened up opportunities for future learning. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Knight Foundation and Ushahidi came together to identify these successes and challenges. The outcomes of this learning and evaluation project aim to help plan for future Uchaguzi instances and share learning to the broader user community. This Uchaguzi case study is presented in a format that follows an evaluation framework of three phases: assessment, implementation and output. It also approaches learning from the perspective of many non-technical efforts that go into a successful project. While the case study will focus on the 2010 Kenyan Referendum Uchaguzi experience it will also reference experiences in Tanzania.

Successes, Challenges & New Ways Forward The great successes of the Uchaguzi‐Kenya project were a commitment to a collective approach to problem solving and strong leadership that focused on overall goals. The flexibility and creative minds of the leadership team, volunteer groups and other partners created real‐time work‐arounds that helped achieve the project goals.

Recommended Next Steps • Plan early One resounding challenge was aiming to achieve many objectives in such a short time period. Planning early, from 6-12 months prior to an election/referendum was strongly and widely recommended. • Further build effective partnerships Defining and agreeing on roles, responsibilities and expectations will help partners implement a successful project. • Develop Strategies (e.g., campaign, feedback to action, security and privacy) Strategies should aim to 1) improve the filtering and verifying large volumes of information 2) strengthen feedback loops and action by building an urgent response team, and 3) provide any necessary security & privacy plans for the project and its users. • Use simulation Simulation exercises can help identify obstacles, test new technology, and improve workflows and communication approaches. These activities can better prepare people for an upcoming election/referendum day and provide a wealth of community building and learning opportunities.

Assesssment & Implementation Phase Project Goal & Objectives Partners complemented one another in ways that could not be achieved by one organization alone. But coming to a common agreement on objectives and expectations was challenging and led to misunderstandings. Future projects should consider having early meetings to work together to define a common set of goals and objectives. Memorandums of Understanding may help facilitate this process.

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Partnerships, Roles, & Responsibilities Maintaining coordination and upholding commitments were challenging. Sometimes members did not meet expectations of other partners. A workshop or meeting early in the project can establish a clear set of partner roles. Job descriptions may ensure accountability and place the project and the partners in the best positions for success. During the project there should be opportunities to “check in” (e.g., meetings) to improve communications and set positive expectations for involved partners. Civic education and media organizations should be considered as new partners.

Mapping & Information Visualization Sometimes people were unable to access or actively look at the web maps. This was due not only to lack of high-speed bandwidth or Internet availability but also due to no knowing how to interact (e.g., zoom in/out & move) with the map. During the early planning stage (assessment phase) a group/ task force should assess users’ access to Internet and bandwidth and ability navigate online maps. This group should also identify opportunities to share paper maps if technology and web access is limited.

Information flows & Communication The Uchaguzi platform added new communication pathways (e.g., SMS, twitter, email, web entries, etc.) to provide more efficient and near real-time access to referendum/election information. Future projects should identify and consider integrating existing information flows to avoid duplication. For example, partnering with media organizations, such as radio stations, can have a broad reach with the community. Strongly consider creating a communications strategy (including campaign & feedback loops) at the assessment/planning stage. When using shortcode, consider coordinating with other organizations who may be using similar shortcodes. Consider designing messaging campaigns together to minimize confusion with the public. Consider a simulation exercise to test information flows, communication, technology, and volunteer teams.

Campaign Messaging The project successfully used many different methods in their campaign to inform the public about the project. Future efforts should create a campaign strategy and timeline that includes 1) establishing roles among partners responsible for shortcode and advertising 2) designing a message that not only informs the public about the project, but also informs the public about the project limitations.

Information, Security, & Privacy Information security, privacy, and risks to people did not appear to be a major issue during this project, but future projects may face these very important risks and challenges.

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A people, organization, data and system risk assessment should be performed for all projects, and a group strategy should be created. There is a quickly growing body of resources and working groups that can provide feedback, guidance and support for these activities. Partners should keep an open dialogue with one another about changing perceptions of risks during the project. Create contingency plans that aim to minimize threats to the public, project, partners and system.

Technology & Instance Development One of the greatest strengths of the technical portion of this project was that the technical team was part of the Ushahidi organization and intimately familiar with the Ushahidi platform. Projects that are less familiar with Ushahidi/Crowdmap and/or the project location should strongly consider a technology assessment before beginning a project. Consider planning more time for technical development, prioritization of customizations, and a “freeze point” where new customizations are stopped in order to fix bugs.

Volunteer Recruitment & Training Volunteers provided invaluable support. Training both CRECO monitors and volunteers improved the quality and the speed of information flows. Determining what constitutes an “actionable” or “high priority” message for the volunteers, and also defining the communication pathways to responders will set the stage for training volunteers on how to manage these incoming messages. One great resource available to future Uchaguzi projects is the lesson learned and training structure of the Standby Task Force. Consider having a simulation event as a way to train monitors and volunteers months before the referendum/election day.

Contingency Plans The project did not appear to have a contingency plan and when interviewing project members almost all expressed interest in having such a plan in the future. The goals of these plans should be to

1. Maintain basic infrastructure 2. Maintain communication between lead members 3. Provide a backup network of information processing for highly actionable information.

Creating a contingency plan can include plans for back up servers, volunteer groups, communication channels for coordinators, and connections to responders.

Resources, Funding & Planning The most common recommendation was to plan earlier – at least 6 months to 1 year prior to the event. Creating a project plan and timeline will help organizations determine what key parts of the project should be monitored over time. Aim to identify resources (funding and human resources) for campaign messaging, media volunteers, coordinators, and analysts (to identify “hot spots and trends”) as early as possible.

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Output Phase Information Flows 550 CRECO election monitors, Uwiano, and the public contributed over 2,500 messages, which resulted in over 1500 reports. 149 reports resulted in “actions taken” primarily through the CRECO network.

Improvements in both the technology and people micro-tasking to filter incoming messages (e.g., color coding reports) would improve information processing, help identify priority messages, and facilitate communications to enable action. The project should position “supernodes” (individuals trusted among many groups who are action oriented) where they can troubleshoot unanticipated challenges, and open up communication channels to allow timely action.

Prioritization, Actionable Messages & Feedback Loops There was strong communication between the Uchaguzi-Kenya project manager, Ushahidi staff, CRECO and SODNET. This helped strengthen the multiple feedback loops for urgent and high priority messages. CRECO played a very important role in communicating with the IIEC. 149 reports resulted in “actions taken” but there was confusion around what constituted an actionable message and how best to prioritize messages as they flowed in.

During the implementation phase, partners should set criteria for action-oriented messages, and define priority levels so volunteers can appropriately and efficiently categorize reports. Consider creating an urgent response team. The role of this team would be to focus on validating messages and tracking priority reports. They would also be responsible for monitoring levels of tension and conflict and communicating important information to partner organizations in positions to respond.

Conclusion Overall the Uchaguzi-Kenya project was a success. The collective action of all those involved provided a communication channel for Kenyans to share information about the referendum. It also enabled some organizations to take immediate action based upon the information on the platform. The project was not without its challenges. This case study aims to help bring light to some of them and share the creative solutions of dedicated and passionate participants. But more importantly it aims to help future users learn from the past, to spark fruitful conversations among future Uchaguzi/Ushahidi/Crowdmap deployers and to help others plan future projects.

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Methods & Analysis The Uchaguzi Case study is presented in a format created to evaluate Ushahidi and Crowdmap projects and approaches evaluation from the perspective of the non-technical efforts that go into a successful project. This case study will focus on the 2010 Kenyan Referendum Uchaguzi experience, but it will also reference parts of the 2010 Uchaguzi Tanzanian election experience. Both projects used Ushahidi technology for citizens and election monitors to report incidents. Sections of this evaluation focus on topics such as partnerships, campaign messaging, and feedback loops.

Interest Phase

Assessment

Implementation Phase

Process Analysis

Output Phase

Outcome Analysis

Project goals/objectives/outcomes Visualization & mapping Partnership & audience Information & communication Campaign & messaging strategy Privacy & security Technology Resources & funding Planning & project timeline

Choosing Ushahidi vs. Crowdmap Roles & responsibilities Planning information flows Communication channels Planning categories Confirmation & verification Feedback loops Choosing the right map Your campaign & messaging: managing expectations Admin & volunteer teams Training

Evaluating goals/objectives Real-time evaluations Retrospective evaluations Checklists: 1. Partnerships 2. Technology 3. Campaign/messaging 4. Information flows 5. Action/feedback 6. Communications 7. Maps/visualization 8. Information security 9. Volunteers/teams 10. Other Action plans/implementation

See Toolbox #1 Self-Assessment

See Toolbox #2 Implementation

See Toolbox #3

Information collection, and analysis, decision-making

The interest phase discusses Uchaguzi project goals and objectives, partnerships, mapping and visualization. Experience from the perspective of roles and responsibilities, campaign messaging, and volunteer training are described in the implementation phase. Lastly, the output phase describes the information processing experience using the Ushahidi platform, and how this information was prioritized and translated into feedback and action. This case study is an example of an evaluation that can be achieved using Toolbox 3.

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Assessment Phase Uchaguzi Project Goals, Objectives, and Expected Outcomes “I think what an organization really first needs to think is, OK we’re using Ushahidi, but why? And what are we going to get from it? What does it improve or speed up for us compared to what we were doing before?” “I think really approaching this from a program design perspective would be helpful.” “For CRECO for instance, our goal is to prevent or to resolve electoral issues so it doesn’t lead to an outbreak of violence. And kind of take that back and say, what are our underlying assumptions about theories of change, and so, how do these particular actions lead toward that.”

The goal of Uchaguzi-Kenya was to provide a channel for Kenyan citizens to communicate openly about the 2010 Kenyan referendum using the Ushahidi platform. Although there was no unifying set of objectives, partners described the following:

• To provide a space for information sharing and collaboration • To amplifying citizen voices • To increase the efficiency of existing election monitoring system • To create a mechanism through which citizens could actively monitor and report

incidences related to the election process. Organizations involved in Uchaguzi-Kenya collaborated and complemented each other. This led to a successful collaboration, but organizations often had different objectives contributing to challenges during the project. Uchaguzi was a new endeavor, not only in technology, but also in partnerships and information flows. Document reviews and interviews show that a set of agreed upon project outcomes was lacking and this was likely due to the fact that each organization was learning how to integrate their missions into the overall project. “I think Ushahidi (for election monitoring) works well if you have a broad selection of organizations supporting you… But getting organizations to work together (with) mutual trust between them ...it takes time.”

Partnerships Before the referendum Uchaguzi partners met in Nairobi. Attendees included CRECO, SODNET, Ushahidi, Uraia, and HIVOS. Each group had unique assets and complementary strengths. For example CRECO had previous election monitoring experiences and consists of a large trusted network of monitors. Ushahidi served as the core technical partner for the project, providing developers and convening volunteers. The collective action among all five organizations was a success. Despite many challenges and areas for future improvements a single organization would not have succeeded alone because no one group had all the necessary skills and resources. According to interviewees, maintaining coordination and partner commitments was challenging and some people felt that the commitments of others did not meet their expectations. “One thing I took away from the experience was understanding that there needs to be better communication. Recognizing the different languages that tech and non‐tech people speak, and that we can’t always take for granted what is common knowledge and what is not.” Communication between partners was essential during the project. Initial partnership meetings allowed groups to learn about each other’s aspirations. One lesson learned by project manager Jessica Heinzelman was understanding that different groups communicate in different ways.

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Interviewees and evaluation reports recommend establishing a clear set of roles and responsibilities early in the project. Moderated discussions should seek to have organizations understand the perceived risks and benefits of partnerships throughout the entire project. Documents that reflect these discussions should be created and could also outline partner roles and responsibilities. Some participants recommended using memoranda of understanding (MOUs) as a way to improve partnership buy-in and commitment throughout the project cycle. Specifically, some believe that MOUs can provide clarity on expectations and improve communications. “An MoU with all involved partners at the beginning will help to better map out what the objectives are in using Uchaguzi, reduce moments of friction during the process and enable better tracking of whether their capacity to effectively use the platform is indeed enhanced. This includes defining what the information will be used for by different organizations, what the platform can and cannot do for them, and what their own commitments need to be to the platform and other stakeholders.” Many interviewees recommended partnerships with civic education and media organizations. They believe that these organizations and consortia have the potential to broadly disseminate campaign messaging and could improve the implementation and outcomes of a future Uchaguzi deployment. Future Uchaguzi deployments should bring partners together in a workshop or meeting during the assessment phase. New partners can be a part of this initial meeting to learn and decide if a partnership is possible. The meeting should aim to first expose any differing perspectives followed by a collegial process to agree on common goals and objectives. This process will improve collaboration and coordination because partners will approach challenges from common set of goals and objectives. The project should consider using MOUs to strengthen partnerships. Toolbox 1, slides 8-9 can be used as a guide for this activity.

Mapping & Visualization The Uchaguzi project mapped individual reports onto the platform to show the report type and location on a country map during the referendum period. The opportunity to share information on a map with a broader community was a common interest among the partners. Some partners believed that the map would have the ability to deter specific actions, but it was unclear which groups (e.g., media, local communities, election organizations) were the primary target of the web-based maps and how viewing it would achieve some of the project’s objectives. Many partners also assumed that all citizens were able to access maps from the web, but soon realized that this was not always true. Some communities were unable to access the web and others were able to see the Uchaguzi website but were not familiar with how to navigate the maps to see reports. Toolbox 1, slide 10, can be used in the future to assess mapping needs. “... from digital mapping, it was very easy for us and for Uchaguzi to liberalize the electoral process. These issues would be easily uploaded and then seen, not only here, but across the world.”

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“And one of the things that I appreciated...was the fact that it ... was a deterrence, people could not do things because it would be discovered.”

Information / Communication The Uchaguzi-Kenya project planned to collect referendum information from CRECO election monitors and the “crowd” or public. Crowdsourced information was unstructured and information from CRECO monitors was structured using checklists and a code card. The plan was to use election-monitoring information to verify crowd reports. The Uchaguzi platform added new communication pathways (e.g., SMS, twitter, email, web entries, etc.) to provide more efficient and near real-time access to election information improving situational awareness. SMS was the major communication pathway for incoming information. Campaign planners used radio, television advertisements, tweets, and word of mouth to inform the public about the Uchaguzi project. Plans on how to communicate near real-time information back to the crowd and other stakeholders are less clear from this evaluation and the review of other evaluation reports. At the assessment phase, groups should think about what information already exists and how it is already being communicated. Existing information can flow through new communication pathways or new information may be best communicated along traditional communication lines. Partners should determine not only what new or existing information is needed to enter into the Ushahidi platform, but also discuss communication strategies. Partnering with media organizations, such as radio stations, can have a broad reach with the community. These strategies can include campaigns that inform communities about the project purpose, how it will happen, and open up discussions about how information can best be shared with the public, media and other interested groups. (Toolbox 1, slides 13-14)

Uchaguzi-Tanzania participants recommend transforming the web-based map into paper maps. This would help local partners share the information with communities that are unable to access the map in its online format. Sharing maps in a newspaper immediately after the election would also broaden the reach of Uchaguzi efforts.

Security & Privacy “The ability to create questionnaires gets people to start thinking about the security that I think needs to be a standard set of questions that people ask for in any installation at all.” While the issues of information security, privacy and the possibility of retribution for sharing information was not a major issue in the Uchaguzi-Kenya project; it may play a very large role in other election monitoring projects that use Ushahidi or Crowdmap. Risks to people systems and organizations are constantly evolving approaches to security privacy will need to be regularly evaluated. A security and privacy review should begin with:

• A discussion of potential risks to the crowd and organizations if they use the platform

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• Plans on how to keep technology hardware (e.g., servers) safe and secure

• Plans for how volunteers and others should be trained to keep information private and secure, if necessary

• A contingency plan for security and privacy related events. Two resources to help think about and plan a data protection, security and privacy strategy are particularly notable. “Securing Crisis Maps”, created by Rob Baker and George Chamales is a helpful infographic that shows different areas of information, security and privacy risks. A blogpost by Anahi Ayala Iacucci, “Crisis Mapping and Cybersecurity” describes one approach to addressing these issues. Questions from Toolbox 1, Slide 16 “ICT, Privacy& Security” can also be used as a guide to think about these issues in election monitoring projects.

Technology Ushahidi developed the platform and first used it during the 2007 Kenyan post-election violence. Ushahidi staff and much of their volunteer community had prior experience with developing software, creating customizations and mapping information onto the platform. In 2010, 62% of the Kenyans were mobile service subscribers, texting approximately 10 times per month. Although voice and SMS may be widely used, the Communication Commission of Kenya statistical report does not describe the geospatial distribution of mobile use throughout the country. The geographical distribution of SMS and mobile phone use may influence how election information flows throughout the country during an election or referendum. As of late 2010, only 10.2 % of the population had access to the Internet. This statistic neither provides insight into how often users have access to the internet nor the degree of bandwidth that is reliably available, both elements that provide real-time, access to view Uchaguzi maps and report information. It is recommended that future Uchaguzi projects in other regions consider a technology assessment (Toolbox 1, slide 17) before beginning a project to understand and determine the internal technology needs and the capacity of their partners and public. This is also strongly recommended to organizations that seek to use a similar model.

Resources, Funding, Planning, and Project Timeline It can be challenging to anticipate the resources and necessary funding to launch a project with new partners, technology and information flows. HIVOS and Twaweza supported the Uchaguzi-Kenya project along with a large community of volunteers. Many people felt that more resources would help future Uchaguzi projects and recommended identifying these needs earlier in the project cycle. Resources for campaign messaging, media volunteers, coordinators, and analysts (to identify “hot spots and trends”) were some suggestions. One of the most common recommendations regarding resources by those interviewed was more time for planning and training. Almost all interviewees recommend beginning the planning phase anywhere from 6 months to 1 year prior to the referendum. Creating a project plan and timeline will help organizations determine what key parts of the project should be monitored over time. Interviewees mentioned the need to plan interval partner meetings, campaign and messaging timelines, technology and customization plans, volunteer or data team training timelines and plans to establish new or traditional feedback loops to communities. A review of project timelines of the other election monitoring experiences using the Ushahidi platform (Zambia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, etc.) will also inform future projects and help set the stage for the implementation phase.

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Implementation Phase Roles & Responsibilities

The project included campaigns, a SMS shortcode, election monitors, and observers and multi-site information processing centers. During the implementation phase individuals and partners took on roles and responsibilities that resulted in a successful collection of information during the referendum period. Partners created campaigns, which provided different communication channels to spread the word. Overall, people wished for more defined roles and responsibilities at the partner and individual level. Another evaluation report referenced the need to, “Establish partner organization roles and responsibilities and integrate them into an overarching project plan.” Jessica Heinzelman described some of the challenges that she faced as project manager and from her experiences recommends a more structured way to communicate roles and responsibilities for future Uchaguzi deployments. Job descriptions would help ensure accountability and place the project and the partners in the best positions for success. If people were more aware of roles and responsibilities they would be able to reach out to one another for assistance and collaboration.

Implementation Toolbox 2, “Understanding Roles and Responsibilities” and “Planning Roles and Responsibilities”, can be used in future Uchaguzi projects. “The first thing I would do differently is start planning much earlier.” “If we had had an extra month of optimizations, trials, and advanced training, I think we would have been much more prepared.”

Information & Communications Flows Approximately 550 CRECO monitors planned to send information into the platform and an unknown number of crowd messages from the public were expected to come into the platform as well. The campaign asked them to send in information through the shortcode 3018.The monitors were trained to use a “how-to” code card with 48 predefined report types to be sent via SMS to Uchaguzi. The numerical codes would then be translated into the corresponding text before the report was posted on the site. There was another platform called, Uwiano, which also used shortcode (6397) to allow citizens to report violent incidents or tension around the referendum period. The Uwiano platform was a collaboration between PeaceNet, UNDP and IIEC. PeaceNet eventually contributed a large flow of information during the referendum period but were less involved in the implementation phases. Similar shortcodes caused some confusion among the public. One way to mitigate confusion would be to work with other organizations with similar shortcodes to frame campaign messaging. In addition, if identified early, a more formal partnership could be created potentially using one shortcode, but is not without its challenges.

Implementation Phase

Process Analysis Choosing Ushahidi vs. Crowdmap Roles & responsibilities Planning information flows Communication channels Planning categories Confirmation & verification Feedback loops Choosing the right map Your campaign & messaging: managing expectations Admin & volunteer teams Training

See Toolbox #2 Implementation

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”People thought that our shortcode was the same as theirs (3018)... and they were talking about similar things ... our publicity started like 2 or 3 days before the referendum. Theirs was also free, and ours was five Shillings to submit. .... there was a bit of (public) confusion.” Once the information arrived into the Uchaguzi platform, different volunteer teams and coordinators at the iHub and CRECO offices categorized and mapped the information onto the public website. The plan was to have two separate flows of information: one from the crowd and another from the monitors. It was hoped that the crowd information would be verified by monitors, if necessary. Meeting during the implementation phase with all key partners may help identify obstacles and work through challenges. During these sessions, partners could create an information flow diagram that looks at all stages of communication and information flows. (see Toolbox 2, slides 10-13) Another opportunity for future Uchaguzi projects is to carry out a simulation of the election or referendum period. With existing datasets from prior projects, a simulation exercise could help a project work out bugs and unrecognized problems in workflows and communications. While the time and resources needed to integrate a simulation experience into the project requires planning at an early stage, this learning and adaptive exercise will likely expose many glitches that can be addressed prior to the actual election or referendum period.

Uchaguzi Instance Development “It was easy to handle all the parts because you have a large developer community here.”

Technology development for the Uchazugi-Kenya project began in mid-July. One of the greatest strengths of the technical portion of this project was that the technical team was part of the Ushahidi organization and intimately familiar with the Ushahidi platform. The servers were located in the iHub where many Ushahidi staff and volunteers work. There is also a large technology development community in Kenya. The iHub provided a very valuable innovation space for “hackathons” and “meetups” where developers could meet and work on the technical needs of the Uchaguzi-Kenya project. The lead technical coordinator Linda Kamau had previous experience using the Ushahidi platform for election monitoring in Burundi and brought her own lessons learned to the Uchaguzi-Kenya project. One of the major challenges from the technical team was the plan to use Huduma, which was a platform in development. During the implementation phase, project plans stemmed from the assumption that the Huduma platform would be complete and functional before the referendum period. With this in mind, volunteer training and many other project activities hinged on this stage of technical development. The decision to not proceed with Huduma occurred three weeks before the referendum.

Learning from the Uchaguzi-Kenya team’s challenges with trying to create a new platform in a short time frame, many have recommended to consider planning more time for technical development, prioritization of customizations, and a “freeze point” where new customization are stopped in order to fix bugs.

Choosing the Maps For the Uchaguzi project, the full screen map feature was integrated into the platform. Due to the limitations of this evaluation, CRECO monitors, and the general public were not interviewed and their experiences using the website, and utility of the maps from their perspectives are not known.

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Uchaguzi‐Tanzania – Choosing the Map Not all individuals had adequate bandwidth to easily upload the maps and there were also anecdotes about individuals who sent information into the Uchaguzi-Tanzania instance who did not know how to drag, magnify, or perform other Google map functions on the Uchaguzi-Tanzania map. There was frustration and an initial perception that information was not being posted on the site. From these experiences, some have recommended finding a way to create a “light” version to enable low bandwidth users access to the information and map. “It would be very interesting if Ushahidi could design a light version...[for some] it takes 5 minutes to upload and the dots come 3 minutes later. And if you don’t know the dots are coming, you’re not going to wait for them.”

Campaign & Messaging The campaign informed communities about the Uchaguzi project and how to send in messages via the 3081 shortcode. It was publicized two months before the referendum day, and partners also launched individual campaigns. There were also advertisements in the Daily Nation, The Standard, Facebook messages, television messages, and radio interviews. Despite the many different modalities used to communicate the Uchaguzi project to the public, partners felt that the popularization took longer than they had expected. One contributing factor was the cost of establishing the shortcode. Earlier communications could also help establish expectations about the benefits and limitation of the platform. Working with the public and civil society organization to use traditional communications pathways could also get the word out.

“I remembered technical aspects in Burundi and those are some of the things used during the Uchaguzi brainstorming session to come up with the successful plug-ins. Split up the different screen views for monitor & crowd reports was one of things that came up which we actually implemented for Uchaguzi.” “Our message did not tell people what we were going to do with the information.” “The call was made to abandon Huduma because it wouldn’t be ready on time and focus on customizing the existing platform. And I think that was a place where we could have made a different decision and had a really big impact.” With a growing body of Uchaguzi and other election monitoring experiences using the Ushahidi and Crowdmap platforms, creating a campaign strategy and timeline would benefit future projects. Setting expectations among partners responsible for establishing shortcode while mobilizing different campaign options (e.g., radio, television, advertisements) should be planned early in the implementation phase. Workshop sessions could also help partners create and test campaign messages. This should include messages about what information to send in via shortcode, but also messages on what the public can expect the project to do for them and their communities. For future projects in insecure environments, more time should be planned to work closely with partners on crafting messages to the public in order to ensure safety and privacy. Toolbox 2, Slides 20-23, can help the campaign design and messaging process.

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Volunteer Recruitment & Training

The recruitment and training of volunteers and election monitors was a success. Linda Kamau, the project technical lead, anticipated the need for a large number of developers and helped recruit volunteers from the Nairobi development community. Sisi ni Amani, a NGO was also asked to help recruit and train information processing and mapping volunteers. CRECO election monitors were trained on how to use the code cards, which enable a more structured way of sending in information. Those interviewed in this evaluation brought up the following challenges:

• Determining the number of needed volunteers

• Training people with novice computer skills

• Anticipating translation needs

• Training around the identification and actions for high priority messages.

An information flow diagram could also inform volunteers of their micro-tasking roles within the larger project. Using a diagram, volunteer teams may find it easier to communicate needs and questions to the appropriate coordinators. Also, coming to an agreement among the team members of what constitutes an “actionable” message for the volunteers, and also defining the communication pathways to responders will set the stage for training volunteers on how to manage these types of incoming messages. One great resource available to future Uchaguzi project is the lesson learned and training structure of the Standby Task Force. There were two locations where volunteers processed information: the iHub and CRECO offices. These two groups, one from the iHub community and the other from the CRECO community were complementary to one another and the shared spaces allowed volunteers the opportunity to communicate with one another. It was an energizing environment. Although there were no security events, having multiple locations and also remote volunteers as backup support will mitigate some security concerns. Other volunteers worked remotely from their homes and were assisted via a Skype channel set up for the project. Depending on the security context, this may be another strategy for mitigating concerns. “There may be instances in an election monitoring where it would be strategic to have pods located in multiple places if there are security concerns.”

Contingency Planning The volunteer iHub team functioned as a backup volunteer group for the CRECO team. Communication lines between CRECO, the IIEC and PeaceNet were available to facilitate information exchange for high priority events. The project did not appear to have a formal

The Uchaguzi-Tanzania team had some difficulties estimating the number of necessary volunteers. During the election, the number of messages exceeded the volunteer capacity. One of the contributing factors was the time it took for people to translate messages from different dialects, and their ease in interfacing with computers. For future Uchaguzi projects the implementation phase should also try to anticipate SMS messages in different languages or dialects. If this exists, more planning may be necessary to recruit, organize and coordinate volunteers with different language capabilities. In addition, during the technology assessment phase, if the volunteer community has introductory computer and web skills, more training time and exercises will be necessary to prepare volunteers for large volumes of information processing. “There must always be a back up and expectations of users need to be clearly adapted to this reality. This will not only help avoid tension between partners, but also reduce the risk of activities coming to a standstill without ICT.”

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contingency plan and when interviewing project members almost all expressed interest in having such a plan for future projects. The following are recommendations on how to think about a contingency plan.

• In the setting of violence and security events, the contingency plan should consider communicating information to the media, and also feeding information back to peace activities if possible.

• Consider back-up volunteers from the Diaspora or others who can process information remotely, and plan for the management of this community as well. Recognize that verification of information by these communities can be a challenge.

• Consider having a backup server at another location so that operations can continue.

• Consider having rotating volunteer teams to prevent volunteer fatigue.

Output Phase This following section describes the Uchaguzi-Kenya referendum activities as well as the Uchaguzi-Tanzania election (grey boxes). It includes how information flowed into and out of the Uchaguzi platform. It also discusses feedback loops and communications between partners and the broader community.

2010 Kenyan Referendum Day “I think we were very communicative about the issues. At that moment we were able to enjoy each other as a community and know that we were all there for a purpose and working towards a common goal. Which really made it a positive experience for everyone, regardless of the challenges.”

One of the greatest successes of the Uchaguzi-Kenya project was the collective approach to problem solving with leadership support that focused on the overall goals. The flexibility and creative minds of the leadership team and volunteer groups created real-time work-arounds that helped the project achieve its goals for all partners. We just made sure the information was getting in there instead of making it perfect or making it so that we could dissect it later. Having that ability to say, okay, we’re going to forget about this now, this is not the most important priority and we’re just going to make it work.

Information Flows In Kenya, 550 election monitors, stationed around the country, began sending in SMS messages into the CRECO offices where 10-11 staff began processing and mapping information. Initially some election monitors requested additional guidance on how to send SMS messages. Volunteers provided guidance via telephone in the morning and by mid-day, the monitors were comfortable sending in information. Uwiano information began flowing in representing information gathered from the public weeks prior to the referendum date but individual messages were not time stamped. Information from the crowd also starting flowing in. One of the challenges during the referendum was filtering messages. Although there had been plans to separate crowd and monitor messages, this was not technically possible at the time of the project. Uwiano message also were difficult to filter after the messages were merged into the system. This resulted in untagged information on the Uchaguzi platform making retrospective analysis of information flows difficult. For future Uchaguzi instances, one recommendation that resonated from interviewees is to improve the filtering system for incoming messages. Color coding crowd and monitor reports

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would help microtasking and processing of information as it comes in. Others suggested coding information as pre-event, event and post-event as they believed these types of information have different purposes.

2010 Tanzanian Election – Information Overload The Tanzania-Uchaguzi experience faced information overload challenges. There were thirty times more trusted sources who sent in coded information via SMS and the team faced technical challenges as well. The instance was not set up to accommodate the large number of pre-defined trusted sources in the system. During the election day, when numbers arrived via text message volunteers spent time calling people back to ensure that the numbers came from trusted sources. Although this provided a high level of verification, the number of messages, coupled with the more novice computer skills of volunteers created an information-processing overload, limiting the speed of mapped information during the election. Some people felt that the crowd reports included less information that could be mapped, including “spam” messages and other messages with no geographic locations. Some members felt that had the campaign commenced earlier this may have improved the quality of the crowd messages. “In Tanzania we were struggling with 4,000 messages.”

Communication There were many pathways of communication during the referendum. At the iHub, volunteers communicated with coordinators troubleshooting platform glitches, and clarifying volunteer questions on how to process and map information. Erik Hersman (Ushahidi) and Philip Thigo (SODNET) sat side-by-side communicating information between Ushahidi and SODNET. Kawive from CRECO traveled to and from the iHub maintaining communications between the two information processing centers. He also maintained communications with IIEC staff. Some members felt that having two separate locations of information processing created a “silo.” Despite the intent to compare crowd and monitor messages during the referendum it was not possible to filter messages from election monitors and the crowd. This likely contributed to the feeling that the groups were silo’d. “It will be good to build some easy steps by which you can actually separate your reports between your actionable ones and your non-actionable ones”

Prioritization and Actionable Messages Another challenge was identifying action or priority messages. Confusion likely stemmed from the lack of consensus around the definition of “priority” and “actionable” from a project level, volunteer training, and limitations in platform filtering functions. Despite these challenges, volunteers and leaders in the project

Uchaguzi-Kenya Platform Statistics

Total messages received 2,525 Referendum day messages 1,778 Uwiano messages 1,573 # reports 1,523 # total Uchaguzi messages 2,492

SMS: 1,900 Twitter: 571 Email: 21

% verified reports 51% # of “Actionable” reports 1,515 # of “Action Taken” reports 149 Top Categories: Everything Fine (49%) Tensions (17%) Peace Efforts (6%)

(Uwiano information was) imported it into Google

spreadsheets. People went through the data to try to parse

out the important ones.

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worked together to create work-arounds to achieve the project goals. Volunteers transferred Uwiano messages to Google Docs spreadsheets to identify high priority messages that required follow up and action. In the implementation phase bringing partners together to determine what constitutes feasible action-oriented messages will help define what “actionable” and “priority” means for the project. Volunteers can then be trained on how to identify and filter “actionable” or “high priority” messages. Developing action and priority buttons on the instance would also improve microtasking efforts to filter and allow key decision-maker to respond with the appropriate partners. Many recommendations have already been incorporated into the new Ushahidi platform. Developer George Chamales has built and tested new microtasking platforms that may address these challenges for future Uchaguzi projects.

Feedback Loops & Action “We tried to have direct links to the electoral commission. It’s important, once you have observed violence, to do something about it” “If we had a report around an area where we knew a CRECO monitor was, we had a channel to them.”

Strong communications between the Uchaguzi-Kenya project manager, Ushahidi staff, CRECO and SODNET helped strengthen the feedback loops for urgent and high priority messages. There were multiple feedback loops including those from CRECO to the IIEC. For example, CRECO monitors identified posters with incorrect voting colors and this information was sent into the Uchaguzi platform, verified, by the trusted CRECO network with digital images, which prompted the removal of the posters with the assistance of the IIEC. Sharing information with the local and international media was a major way of sharing information with the broader community. The platform information was aired on prime-time Kenyan television for two days. “If you’re going to send in messages that people are going to classify as urgent, there should be a specific reply says ‘thank you for your message, we’re responding to it.’” For future projects, people recommended an urgent response team who would be able to track priority messages and monitor levels of tension and conflict. The team’s role would be to communicate important information to partner organizations in positions to respond. Learning from the Uchaguzi-Kenya experience, trusted individuals among organizations (supernodes) should be placed in positions to help facilitate coordination and sharing of information between Uchaguzi and responding actors. While information feedback and action loops should occur among the project partners, parallel feedback loops to communities should occur as well. Printing reports and sharing them in community meeting or posting them on public walls is one suggested way of sharing. Individual feedback to senders can also occur with reply SMS message to sender acknowledging the receipt of high priority message. Auto-replies for high-priority messages may increase expectations for timely response and these communications should be tightly linked to action. “Engage all partners in developing a feedback loop to citizens: how do you make sure citizens realize the power of such an ICT platform? And how does each organization contribute its own specific merits to this process?”

Conclusion Overall the Uchaguzi Kenya project was a success. The collective action of all those involved provided a communication channel for Kenyans to share information about the referendum. It

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also enabled some organizations to take immediate action based upon the information received. The project was not without its challenges. This case study aims to help bring light to some of them and share the creative solutions of dedicated and passionate participants. But more importantly it aims to help future user learn from the past, to spark fruitful conversations among future Uchaguzi deployers and help others plan future projects.

Thank you The content, analysis, and presentation of this case study could not have been achieved without the honest and creative insights of many interviewees during the project. Feedback from the Ushahidi community of users, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative staff, experts in the field of crisis mapping and crowdsourcing provided invaluable feedback. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative hopes that this collaborative learning effort will contribute to not only evolving growth of Ushahidi as an organization, but also to the next steps that people, groups and organizations will take using their own Ushahidid/Crowdmap platforms in the future. With gratitude,

Jennifer Chan Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

 

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Case Study: Unsung Peace Heroes and Building Bridges

Spreading a positive message of peace The Unsung Peace Heroes project began as a way to recognize individuals who participated in peace efforts in the violent aftermath of the December 2007 Kenyan General Election. The goal of the campaign was to “motivate and symbolize goodwill amongst (young) Kenyans towards each other in the aftermath of the violence and conflict which started in December 2007.” Butterfly Works, an Amsterdam-based “co-design” organization, and Media Focus on Africa Foundation (MFAF), a Nairobi-based nongovernmental media-for-development organization, developed the Unsung Peace Heroes campaign. Unsung Peace Heroes used the Ushahidi platform to collect nominations for local peace heroes, post the nominations, and map the locations of the peace efforts. People could send nominations via the Peace Heroes site, SMS, email, and by filling out a paper nomination at various peace events. Unsung Peace Heroes received nominations through all four options.

Setting up the instance Emer worked closely with David Kobia, lead developer at Ushahidi, during the Unsung Peace Heroes setup. Ushahidi hosted the site for the project so no one at Butterfly Works or MFAF had to install the platform on their servers; however Emer worked with a PHP developer to adjust the site structure and visual design. In short, the Butterfly Works team had control over the design of the site and worked closely with Ushahidi to get the site up and running. Kevin Madegwa, one of the volunteers responsible for managing the Unsung Peace Heroes Ushahidi site, reported having little difficulty using the administrative interface. Kevin, who responded to Ushahidi’s feedback survey, found the features of the Ushahidi site to be “very useful to my project because I can easily modify ideas and easily make corrections.” He also responded that the categorization was “super nice,” and indicated that he liked it. Overall, Kevin found the setup and navigation easy to use.

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Gathering nominations and visualizing the results

Marten Schoonman, former Projects Coordinator at MFAF, thought the Ushahidi platform was effective for meeting their project objectives. He indicated that not only did they learn where peace initiatives and positive action took place, but also where violence occurred. According to Marten, the peace nominations they received align with the places where the most violence was reported during the post-election crisis. The Unsung Peace Heroes campaign was the first time mapping was used as part of a Butterfly Works or MFAF campaign. According to Marten, mapping and visualization of the data helps show patterns when compared to previous Media Focus SMS-based campaigns that did not have geo-located information associated with the messages. Because each nomination was tied to a specific location, it enabled the data managers to see that people in the area nominated a particular hero. Marten noted that the mapping helped ensure that winners were selected from

various parts of the country. However, he also indicated that there is a major drawback of an Internet-based project: “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 the project goals, Internet was only one part of the larger project and campaign. Both MFAF and Butterfly Works use multimedia approaches to target large, diverse audiences. Unsung Peace Heroes received over 500 nominations. Combining an offline and online strategy yielded the most nominations. After advertisements were placed in the daily newspapers and fliers distributed at peace events, nominations increased. The first peak (43 nominations) came after a half-page color advertisement appeared in The Standard newspaper (see graph below). The largest peak of 80 nominations occurred after flier distribution at a peace event in Njoro organized by Citizen Assembly. The second largest peak of 70 nominations occurred after flier distributions at a peace gathering in Nairobi. At both events, the volunteers in the project team got some friends to assist them in distributing fliers. The campaign used one advertisement with the same design to promote the Unsung Peace Heroes (see flier below). The team mailed 2000 posters and 20,000 fliers to partners throughout Kenya with a reach across 12 towns. Volunteers distributed fliers during Generation Jipange, a peace event in Njoro, and Huruma and Jamhuri Day. According to Marten, “the distribution of fliers by hand during relevant events (peace in this case) worked wonders.” He believed that distributing fliers at the events was successful because “people participate with a certain mindset for that day and find it attractive to participate and spend a few shillings.” During the campaign, Kenyans nominated peace heroes who protected others from violence despite putting their own lives in danger; distributed food and goods to those in need; and those who promoted peace through organizing peace marches and singing peace songs. The Unsung Peace Heroes team announced the results of the contest in February 2009, showcasing eight winners. The winners represent Kenyans from various parts of the country,

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backgrounds and ways of life. Butterfly Works and MFAF announced the winners during live events, placed an ad in The Standard newspaper and posted the winners picture and biographies on the Unsung Peace Heroes website.

Unsung Peace Heroes and Unexpected Outcomes

Butterfly Works and MFAF’s multimedia strategy for promotion and gathering nominations had very successful results in terms of the number of nominations they received. This strategy has been recommended to others interested in deploying Ushahidi because it allows project implementers to target diverse audiences including those that do not regularly access the Internet. The goal of Unsung Peace Heroes was to recognize and

reward Kenyans for promoting peace during a time of violence in the country. The implementers expected that the campaign would empower the unsung peace heroes to continue to engage in peace efforts as well as encourage others to actively promote peace in their communities. Emer Beamer, the research and development director at Butterfly Works, describes some of the unforeseen impacts of Unsung Peace Heroes as “something you didn’t see coming, but was often more valuable than anything else.” In other words, the project sparked more positive action from the winners, which in turn led to more positive events. The idea of unexpected outcomes fits in with Butterfly Works overall philosophy regarding a “positive chain of events.” In the case of Unsung Peace Heroes, that chain continued to grow well after the conclusion of the project. The most vivid examples of unexpected outcomes resulted from the work of the eight Unsung Peace Heroes winners. For example, Joel Cheruiyot Sigei set up a prize to re-run the unsung peace heroes competition in his village so that people could nominate good leaders within their community. Two winners were invited on the NTV show, Heroes, and Kamakei ‘Freddy’ Ole Sangiriaki started his own peace organization in his community. More broadly, in 2010, one year after the post-election violence, newspapers republished the Unsung Peace Hero winners despite many other reports recapping the crisis and focusing on the problems. According to Emer, this shows that reporting on people who do something good for their community is newsworthy too.

Moving forward and ‘Building Bridges’ The success of the Unsung Heroes project and the impact it had on the winners and their communities sparked an interest in Butterfly Works and MFAF to do another project related to peace in Kenya. According to Emer, “we were really happy with the crowdsourcing aspect of the whole thing, and people wanted us to repeat it in other places,” so the team began thinking about how to develop a long-term strategy and initiative. “We knew we wanted to do it again, but it had to be different to make sense for the situation in longer term so that’s how we came up with the Building Bridges project and it being about peace initiatives in general.” The goal of the Building Bridges project was to recognize and reward Kenyans who participate in peace initiatives and promote conflict resolution as a way of strengthening the nation’s peace-building

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capacity. The project had two main objectives: (1) map peace initiatives throughout Kenya and (2) recognize and reward (with prize money) Kenyans who participate in peace initiatives and promote conflict resolution. Building Bridges launched in April 2009 and ran for three months as a competition in which individuals, community-based organizations, and civil society organizations were eligible to win a prize for their work. According to a press release sent out to Kenyan bloggers, “Building Bridges is open to all Kenyans engaged in peace-building and peacemaking activities, including organising peace gatherings, community discussions, creative and sportive activities or even holding festivities and doing pro bono work to ensure peace in areas. Building Bridges is putting them all on the map and rewarding the most promising projects.”

Unlike Unsung Peace Heroes, Building Bridges was not based on nominations, but rather on registrations. The project designers anticipated that people would register via a web form, email, SMS, voicemail or postal mail and then update their peace initiatives through the similar mechanisms. They expected most submissions to be sent through SMS. That data-handling team, a group of three former NairoBits students employed by the project, were responsible for managing the registrations and updates. They received most of their submissions via mobile phone, typically preceded by a text messages asking for more information about the initiative. According to Rukia Sebit, the leader of the data-handling team, any texts with “info,” “Building Bridges,” “5447” (the registration short code), or left blank were treated as inquiries for more information. When they received these messages, the data team would call the people back.

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Some people wanted more general information about Building Bridges, others wanted to register their peace activities, and some people were simply confused about the initiative. The competition received more than 600 registrations from individuals and groups all over Kenya. The data team believed that the project had good reach and that Kenyans throughout the country were familiar with the initiative because of the advertisements, particularly the radio spots, and the strength of word-of-mouth, especially through their connections with PeaceNet- Kenya and other local partners. The partnership with PeaceNet-Kenya was critical for spreading the word about Building Bridges to communities with limited access to mass media. Analysis of the available data showed that the majority of registrations came from the Rift Valley and Nairobi provinces (36.9% and 23.6% respectively).1 There were 61 registrations from Nyanza province, 10% of all registrations in the country, with Eastern province accounting for 9.9% of registrations.

1 The Building Bridges has 628 registrations posted, but only 618 have provincial data used in this analysis.

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Activity Categories There were a total of 1,409 activities entered into seven categories. This number is much larger than the number of registrations because some activities were tagged with more than one category. The three largest categories were Individuals, Organizations, and Educational Activities. Media and For Children were the smallest categories.

The Building Bridges jury selected five individual winners, two community-based organizations, and two civil society organizations. The winners were Jane Mweru from Eldoret; Amani Kibera, a CBO located in Nairobi; and the Rafiki Club, which works in Kakamega, Mumias, Msabweni, Mitaboni, and Nairobi. Mweru was injured in a church that was set ablaze during the post-election violence. After the crisis, Mweru opened a nursery school for children who were affected by the church fire. Amani Kibera is a youth program focused on peacebuilding and conflict management through the use of sports, arts, culture, and entertainment. Rafiki Club focuses on empowering women and girls in various Kenyan communities. After the post-election violence, the club developed a program that paired women of different ethnic and religious backgrounds with one another in a letter-writing program. On September 21, 2010, World Peace Day, the winners and runners-up were recognized and rewarded at an event at the iHub, marking the end of the project.

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Mapping and multimedia approach The Building Bridges website was built by integrating the Ushahidi platform with Joomla!, an open-source content management system (CMS). Although this presented some challenges, which are discussed below, combining the platforms allowed for the desired functionality and design. The Butterfly Works staff was more familiar with Joomla! and hired a developer who was comfortable with the platform. Prior to launching the campaign, Butterfly Works conducted a performance test with a small group from Kenya (see Appendix 1 for the questionnaire). The website worked well for outside users and the integration allowed for more functionality than using either platform alone. This type of integration and customization is one of the advantages to using open-source software solutions. With access to the software’s code, programmers can customize the tools to better meet their needs. Both Ushahidi and Joomla! make their code available online. Although the map was important for tracking and visualizing the peace initiatives, it was not as important for the actual registrants. For example, someone could register without ever going online or even knowing about the Ushahidi instance. One of the major goals of Building Bridges was to be as inclusive as possible, which means not requiring individuals to have Internet access to participate. The site, however, did receive consistent visitors from Kenya(mostly the cities) and around the world.2 In addition to the Building Bridges website, they used a Facebook page, Facebook profile, and Twitter account to reach a wider audience and increase participation and interaction. Website traffic: Number of visitors to Building Bridges site between April 1, 2010 and June 20, 2010

Challenges Despite the overall success of the Building Bridges campaign, the team faced a number of challenges along three main fronts: technical, messaging, and personnel and capacity. These areas all present different types of challenge, some of which the team could overcome and others that were not resolved. 2 Unfortunately, we do not have analytics after June 20, 2010, but it can be assumed that visitors stayed steady or perhaps even spiked at the conclusion of the project in July.

Technical challenges One of the project’s biggest technical challenges was integrating Ushahidi with the Joomla! content management system. The Joomla! integration created challenges for the data handling team in Nairobi. Because of the design of the two administration sides, it was difficult to move data between the different systems. The data handling team developed a system for data

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management using Joomla!, Ushahidi and Google Docs. Having three different databases created inefficiencies and slowed the data entry process and website updates. Two other major technical challenges: slow and unreliable Internet connections, and mobile limitations were challenges that the team worked to overcome despite little control over these issues. The data handling team relied primarily on Safaricom 3G modems for their Internet connections. These modems, although rather convenient, were often slow. And, if the Safaricom network was down, the team had limited access to a backup Internet connection. In addition, the lack of Internet access in much of Kenya prevented participants from accessing the website, which meant they weren’t able to register their projects online or view other projects. Because of this lack of Internet access, mobile phones were essential for communicating with participants and for registering projects. The 160-character limit of text messaging presented a challenge for Building Bridges because they needed to collect detailed information about the peace initiatives. It was not possible for people to register their initiatives using SMS because registration required that the projects were entered into the online system. The data team would use the information from the text messages to register the initiatives, but this was not an automatic process. Registrants could send in basic information – name, location, and perhaps one detail – but needed to either fill the web registration, mail in the registration or relay the information to the data team over the phone. In most cases, the team would receive a text message with some information about the initiative and then call the person back to get the remainder of the information. If the people responsible for the initiative had access to the Internet, they could update their projects online. If not, they could send updates via text message. The data entry process was often tedious due to the limitations of mobile and the complicated backend. However, the data team developed a system for collecting, entering, and managing the data, which is discussed in more detail below.

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Communication and Message challenges Another set of challenges had less to do with technology and more to do with communication and the campaign message. Despite consistent messaging across media, it was not always clear to potential participants what Building Bridges was or what they should do to participate. Potential participants would SMS blank text messages or messages asking for more information about the campaign, but would often not submit initiatives. Building Bridges received 16,320 text messages and 628 usable registrations, which are posted to the site. The large discrepancy between the number of messages received and the actual number of registrations suggests that participants were unclear about the purpose of Building Bridges. They would text to the short code without a clear sense of why they were contacting the campaign. The team faced challenges communicating with people on the phone to get more information. It was difficult for the team to talk with people who did not speak English or Swahili. Other times, it was difficult to reach people: the team would call them back, but receive no answer. Some team members disagreed over what qualified as peace activities and what should be mapped. For example, one man said that he talked about peace with patrons in his store. He did not have an organized peace activity, but said he used daily interactions with customers to discuss peace. Some Building Bridges team members felt that this did not qualify as a peace initiative and did not want to add it to the map, while others thought that it did and should be added to the site. In other words, at times, the team disagreed over what should be posted to the site. It would not qualify for the prizes because it did not meet the criteria, but it could still be mapped to show the work going on in that community (see Appendix 2 for criteria used by the jury for selecting winners). More broadly, the Amsterdam team and the Kenya team worked in different environments and sometimes were unable to communicate effectively. Butterfly Works often wanted processes to move more quickly, but the Kenyan team had to cope with the inefficiencies in local systems and Kenyan bureaucracy, which often slowed them down. For example, any competition that awards prizes in Kenya needs approval by the slow-acting Betting Control and Licensing Board. This agency delayed the progress of Building Bridges as the team waited for approval.

Capacity challenges The final set of challenges had to do with capacity and personnel. At times it was difficult to coordinate the two teams, one working in Amsterdam and the other in Nairobi. The distance, differential access to technology, and cultural differences sometimes hindered the two teams. For example, a Butterfly Works staff member in the Netherlands did the web development and Joomla! integration, but the data handling team responsible for using the site was based in Nairobi. When the site didn’t work, they would need to contact Butterfly Works or try to come up with a “fix” independently. Not having the web developer in Nairobi with the data handling team slowed the process and sometimes led to confusion or misunderstandings between the team members. As previously mentioned, the data team said that the registration process was not as clear or easy to participants as it could have been, which slowed down the data entry process and created other inefficiencies in the system. For example, the team added a third database to the process, a Google Docs spreadsheet where they managed SMS. In addition, there was little separation of duties among data team members. In other words, all the team members did every step of the data entry process rather than separating the tasks.

Building Bridges Post-implementation After the initial competition, the implementing partners had plans to refocus their efforts to be more of a networking and facilitation platform allowing groups and individuals to learn about

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each other as well as link up. As of early 2011, Butterfly Works and Media Focus on Africa Foundation had no plans to continue Building Bridges although they originally planned to run a second phase. They did not receive continued funding to work in Kenya, and therefore, the project has not moved into phase two. In April 2011, Butterfly Works released a toolkit, “Social Change Initiatives,” geared toward others interested in designing peace campaigns. The toolkit includes a “how to” guide, a case study of Building Bridges, the software download for the Joomla! component for Ushahidi, Building Bridges’ graphics, and guidelines for monitoring and evaluating. All the materials are available for download and are free for users.

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Project Evaluation and Impact The project team felt that the Building Bridges had positive impact on individuals and communities. The research and development director at Butterfly Works felt that as an organization Butterfly Works learned more about cross-media campaigns with their collaborating partners. She also believed that through the project, people were encouraged and supported. Butterfly Works also performed a countrywide evaluation of the impact of their project. According to their study, 95% of people surveyed thought the campaign was associated with changes in their community.3 Based upon Butterfly Works’ stated goals and objectives4 the data team also shared their perspective on the success of the project in achieving its goals and objectives by completing a survey with five-point Likert scales (See Appendix 3). This is one way to measure a group of people’s feelings about a situation. It can be used to learn how people’s feelings change over time. 3 Butterfly Works. (2011). Toolkit number 1: Social change campaign

4 Ibidz

Project Goals (2 Respondents) Question Average (1-5)

1 How successful was the Building Bridges project in encouraging all Kenyans to stand up and act for peace in their area?

4 Somewhat successful

2 How successful was the Building Bridges project in encouraging all Kenyans to become active drivers of peace through the development and registration of their own peace initiatives?

4 Somewhat successful

3 How well di the Building Bridges project foster collaboration and interactivity amongst peace initiatives across Kenya?

3.5 OK to Well

4 How well did the Building Bridges project support those doing great work? 3 OK

5 How well did the Building Bridges project create a sustainable culture of peace throughout the country?

3.5 OK to Well

Project (2 Respondents)

1 How successful was the project in enabling people to register their own peace initiatives, no matter how tech literate they were on where they were located?

3 OK

2 How well did the project visualize and map all registered projects including related information on a central platform?

4.5 Well to Very well

3 How well did the project allow people to connect and (potentially) offer support?

2 Not so well

4 How well did the project Inspire people to take their own action? 3.5 OK to Well

The data team felt that the Building Bridges project was somewhat successful in (1) encouraging all Kenyans to stand up and act for peace in their area, and somewhat successful in (2) encouraging all Kenyans to become active drivers of peace through development and registration of their own peace initiatives. The team also felt that the project was “ok” at supporting those that did great work. Respondents in the Buttery Works evaluation also shared this sentiment: “A broad majority of participants would have wished for stronger direct support by potentially regional support teams to guide them and help moving their initiatives further, informing them on updates etc.”5

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The team felt that the project was neither successful nor unsuccessful at enabling people to register their initiatives because some never registered their initiative on their own. They also felt that the project objective to connect people together and potentially offer support did no work so well. One member of the data teams shared her thoughts: “I strongly felt that what we could have done better was to organize community forums, sports events (something to bring the community together). Then used that avenue to link the peace makers together to avoid repetition of the same peace projects in one area, where they could link to work together to achieve the goal.” 5 Ibid

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Appendix 1 Performance test: Building Bridges www.buildingbridges.co.ke/joomla

25 March 2010 Butterfly Works

The goal of this test is to see how the Building Bridges website performs. Based on the results we will make the changes needed to realize a good accessibility.

1. Please start with entering the url: www.buildingbridges.co.ke/joomla in the address bar of your browser.

2. How long does it take before you see anything (seconds)? 3. Does the website look well structured or is something out of place? 4. How does the design look? 5. Do you see the image player on the homepage? How does it work? 6. Could you test the website in another browser and answer the above questions again? 7. If you click on ‘View Map’ in the menu, you will see a map, categories, and some time

filter options. Can you tell me how long it takes before you see anything appearing? 8. Does it look structured to you or is something out of place? 9. Please play around with the map to see if it works. The dots in the map are links to

projects. 10. If you click on ‘Reports’ in the menu, you will see a list of all the projects that are on the

website. Can you tell me if it works? 11. Please play aroud with the list of reports to see if it works. The titles of the reports are

links to the projects. 12. Maybe you could visit the other pages to test if everything works and looks the way it

should. 13. Any other comments?

Thanks for helping!

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Appendix 2 Selection Criteria

1. The applicant must be able to proof it realized a series (at least two but preferably more) of connected, consecutive activities which form one initiative/project

2. The applicant must be able to provide at least one independent reference in relation to the activity activities who are not family relations of the applicant or in any way related to/involved in the activity.

3. Applicants should be willing to have a video or audio interview made of them and be willing to appear in mainstream media in relation to the Building Bridges campaign.

Specific for organisations: 4. In case the applicant is an organization, it must have registered the organization with

e.g. the NGO council and be able to provide proof of registration upon request. 5. The applicant must provide evidence of the sustainability of the activity/activities. Within

no more than two years from the start of the activity, it should: a. Achieve financial independence (i.e. not rely on donor funding for continuation,

the activity should be able to pay for itself) OR b. Serve a continued need in the local community and have a steady support base

(can be financially and/or voluntary). Specific for individuals:

6. In case the applicant is an individual, he/she must be not less than 18 years old at the time of entry.

The selection process: Selection of the winning activities will be done by a panel of experts in the area of peace building and sustainable development; the jury. The jury will assess the applications based on the criteria above and their own interpretation thereof due to the expected variety in the types of activities that will be submitted and the nature of the criteria by which they are assessed. The decisions made by the jury are final and will not be subject to correspondence. NB. These criteria are subject to changes at the discretion of the jury, but with final approval by the implementing parties.

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

TIP: An 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 of the actors involved. The launch of the platform is the last step of the project, not the first one. (Anahi Ayala Iacucci)

Tips on using these toolbox documents:

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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

Toolbox 1 Self-Assessment

Let’s Begin….. First Name:____________ Last Name: ____________ Are you an individual or part of an organization?

Organization

Individual

Email Address:___________________

Organiza(on  Name:  ____________  

Uchaguzi-­‐Kenya  Sudan  Vote  Monitor  Unsung  Peace  Heroes    

icon  Point  on  a  Calendar  

For  events  like  elec(on  monitoring,  media  campaigns  with  ending  dates….  (more  text)  

Deployments  

icon    Hot  Flash   For  emergencies  like  natural  disasters,  unexpected  

events….(more  text  here).  Ushahidi  Prototype  Hai(  Crisis  Map  Uk  Riot  Cleanup  Chicago  Blizzard  Japan  Earthquake  

icon  Slow  Burn   For  ongoing  or  complex  emergencies,  to  track  changes  

in  communi(es  or  responding  agencies  ….  (crime  mapping?)  

War  on  Gaza  DRC  Zim  Poli(cal  Crisis  

icon  Long  Term   For  ongoing  programs  and  ini(a(ves  (human  rights  

monitoring,  media,  environmental  mapping,  local  gov  mapping,  resource  mapping  )  

Voice  of  Kibera  KANCO  (health)    Uchaguzi-­‐Kenya    

You  can  use  the  Ushahidi  Pla[orm  for  informa(on  collec(on  and  sharing,  visualiza(on  and  interac(ve  mapping.  There  have  been  over  3000  uses  of  Ushahidi/Crowdmap.  Here  are  some  common  types  of  uses  of  the  Ushahidi  pla[orm  (Ushahidi  video  introduc(on)  (FAQs)..  And  more  

EXAMPLES..  

Here  are  some  things  you  might  want  to  think  about  before  you  start  using  the  plaAorm…..  This  toolbox  will  help  you  answer  many  of  these  quesFons..  

Who  is  your  target  audience?      

What  is  the  incen(ve/mo(va(on  for  people  to  use  your  pla[orm?  

 

How  is  mapping  going  to  contribute  to    your  project?  

 How  are  you  collec(ng  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?    

 

Thinking about How Ushahidi will Help your Project

Example:  Linda  Racree  and  her  team  wanted  to  gather  informa(on  on  the  amount,  types,  and  loca(on  of  violence  happening  in  communi(es  where  they  were  working  on  a  Violence  Against  Children  project.    They  wanted  to  know  where  the  violence  is  happening  most,  and  what  kind  of  violence  it  is.    The  informa(on  was  then  going  to  be  used  by  the  youth  and  project  par(cipants,  staff,  and  relevant  local  or  na(onal  

authori(es.    The  goals  were  to  generate  awareness,  inform  programma(c  efforts,  and  advocate  for  more  aeen(on  and  services  to  prevent,  respond  to,  and  treat  violence  against  children.  

Is  this  a  new  or  exis(ng  project?  

new  

old  

What  are  the  project  goals?  (user  enters  text  here)            What  are  the  project  objec(ves?  (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  Sanita(on      Media      HIV/AIDS     Environment/Conserva(on     Women’s  Issues     War/Conflict     Natural  Disasters     Human  Rights  

 Children  and  Youth    Educa(on    Gender  Based  Violence   Economic  Development     Security/Protec(on     Poli(cal  Violence     Elec(ons/Elec(on  Monitoring    Other,  please  describe______  

Is  this  a  development  or  humanitarian/crisis  project?  (defini(ons  and  examples)    

     Development/Governance       Humanitarian/Crisis  

   Community  Programming     Other  

TIPS: How will you achieve your goals? How will the collected information achieve the goal.  

Project Goals and Objectives

icon    Type  

Your  project/program’s  goals  and  objec(ve  are:      

With  the  goal  to  _____Users  can  correct    the  auto-­‐  inserted  text  here________.    The  program/project  objec(ves  are  Users  can  correct    the  auto-­‐  inserted  text  here__.  

What  are  the  expected  outcomes/impact?  ___________________________________________________________________  ___________________________________________________________________  ___________________________________________________________________    How  will  the  Ushahidi  pla[orm  help  you  achieve  your  expected  outcomes/impact?    ___________________________________________________________________  ___________________________________________________________________  

TIPS: How will you achieve your expected outcomes?  

Expected Outcomes / Impact

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Mapping  data  is  important  for  creaFng  responsibility.  The  fact  that  people  see  their  report  is  the  biggest  moFvaFon  to  engage  them.      -­‐  Oscar  Salazar,  Cuidemos  el  Voto  

Mapping  informaFon  will  benefit  your  project  by:            What  kind  of  informaFon  will  you  map?  How  do  you  intend  to  use  it?          Who  do  you  want  to  view  the  map?            

TIPS:  The  mapping  system  in  Ushahidi  is  not  automa(c:  you  need  to  geo-­‐reference  informa(on  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  twieer  submissions).  What  level  of  precision  does  the  mapping  require?  Do  you  want  data  points  or  data  areas?  (Anahi  Ayala  Iacucci)  

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)

Our  users’  experience  to  date  has  humbled  us  to  realized  that  the  much  of  the  success  from  organizaFons  using  the  Ushahidi  plaAorm  comes  from  the  project  planning  and  preparaFon  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  exisFng  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  soluFon.”    Systems  like  Ushahidi  have  turned  enormous  communicaFon  barriers  into  a  trivial  installaFon  and  training  process.  But  there  is  a  whole  other  90%  of  real  work.  (Chris  Blow)      

Let’s focus on that 90% and identify potential partners in your project.

   

Technology and “the rest” – Allocating Time

Allocation of Time In an Ushahidi Deployment

Ushahidi setup • Requires some tech skills and training, but not much work • Set up a server, run installer, poke around

All the other stuff that makes a project successful • Outreach, branding, translation, annotation, verification, documentation, integration with other systems, SMS debugging, taxonomy development

Learn More: Why technology is 10%- Anahi Ayala Iacucci Allocation of Time –Chris Blow

Who  are  your  partners?  (lisFng)  •     •     

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  organizaFon.    

   

What  roles  will  they  play?  •     •     •     •         TIPS-­‐  Which  partner  will  provide  the  overall  project  manager.    Will  it  be  your  organizaFon?      

Who  are  your  Audiences?  Why  do  you  think  they  will  use  your  plaAorm?  •     •     •     

TIPS-­‐One  of  the  fundamental  parts  of  your  project  is  the  definiFon  of  your  audience.  Who  do  you  want  to  visit  the  site  and  use  your  informaFon  and  who  you  want  to  be  your  reporters?      

    Trust & Partnerships

The crowd as your partner Learn more… icon    

Partnerships & Audience Key to the success of your project

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(ExisFng  project)-­‐  What  informaFon  are  you  currently  collecFng?  What  informaFon  do  you  want  to  add  with  this  project?        (New  project)  What  informaFon  do  you  want  to  collect?          How  will  this  informaFon  allow  the  project  to  achieve  it’s  goals?              

                   

TIPS:  Does  someone  else  have  exisFng  indicators  or  iniFaFves  or  informaFon  needs  or  formats  that  you  should  be  linking  in  with  and  following  or  supporFng?  (Linda  Radree)  

IMPORTANT!  What  is  the  exis(ng  informa(on  flow  and  how  the  informa(on  flow  you  propose  will  change  or  modify  the  exis(ng  one?  The  idea  is  that  the  more  you  modify  the  exis(ng  informa(on  flow  the  

less  your  project  will  be  successful.    

Information Your Ushahidi instance will help you collect,

organize and communicate information for the goals of your project

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From  slide  11,  this  is  your  audience:  ___________________________________________________    How  do  you  plan  to  tell  people  about  your  project  and  how  to  send  informaFon  into  the  plaAorm?      

     Television  AdverFsements          Radio            Newspaper        Flyers        Internet  

 How  do  you  plan  share  the  informaFon  with  your  audience?          

                   

     SMS       Othe     word  of  mouth     Morning  shows     Twifer     Facebook    

TIPS:  think  about  how  your  audience  commonly  views/accesses  informaFon)-­‐  and  what  way  they  are  most  likely  to  view  informaFon  during  a  crisis.  

Example  “The  people  who  Media  Focus  on  Africa  FoundaFon  are  targe(ng  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.  Bueerfly  Works  uses  mul(ple  media  types  in  their  work  as  well  so  the  mul(media  approach  for  Unsung  Peace  Heroes  was  familiar  to  both  organiza(ons  and  important  to  achieving  their  goals.  Bueerfly  Works  and  MFAF  used  a  mul(media  approach,  including  a  website,  newspaper  ads,  radio  and  television  appearances,  par(cipa(on  in  live  events  and  word-­‐of-­‐mouth.  (Melissa  Tully)        

Communication Your Ushahidi instance will help you collect, organize and communicate information for the goals of your project.

Collecting information into Ushahidi platform is only half the battle. How will you communicate information to your audience? Partners? Media?

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The  Unsung  Peace  Heroes  project  

in  Kenya  used  a  mul(media  publicity  strategy,  including  placing  ads  in  the  newspaper,  making  TV  

and  radio  appearances,  handing  out  fliers,  par(cipa(ng  in  local  peace  events  and  having  an  online  

presence,  to  spread  the  work  about  their  project  and  to  collect  

nomina(ons  of  Peace  Heroes  throughout  Kenya.  This  strategy  allowed  them  to  target  various  diverse  audiences  and  in  the  end  

they  received  over  500  nomina(ons  for  Unsung  Peace  Heroes  

throughout  Kenya.  (Melissa  Tully)    

The communication strategy can be: 1)  Announcement of the project/service 2)  Setting expectations 3)  Plan for responding to individual messages 4)  Communicating information to different audiences

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

How will you inform the crowd about your project? How will you communicate with your partners/audience?

Campaign, Messaging, & Communication Strategy Very important too is the communication strategy of the organization,

which should explain what the platform is and what it is not. (Anahi Ayala Iacucci)

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If  you  answer  yes  to  any  of  these  quesFons,  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  sensiFve  informaFon?  Will  your  project  potenFally  place  the  users  or  partners  at  risk?  Does  the  government  strictly  control  informaFon  in  your  project  area?  Are  you  prepared  to  address  any  informaFon/  privacy  breaches  if  they  should  happen?  Who  will  be  responsible?      

Take  the  assessment  

now.    

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.

Information Communication Technology (ICT), Privacy, and Secuity

1   Do  you  have  regular  power/internet  access?  

Yes        No     If  you  project  area  has  limited  power,  and  limited  access  to  internet  this  will  limit  the  ability  to  use  Ushahidi  /Crowdmap.  Consider  using  another  tool  or  start  with  a  small  pilot  project……  

2   Are  your  team  members  volunteers  comfortable  with  computers/the  internet,  etc?  

Yes        No      How  do  your  partners  and  audience  currently  communicate?  What  are  they  comfortable  using  to  communicate?  (cell  phones,  sms,  internet)  What  do  they  have  access  to  and  can  afford?  

3   Do  you  have  a  technology  person  on  your  project?  

Yes        No     If    YES,  then  have  this  person  take  a  look  at  the  Ushahidi  Manual  to  see  if  this  fits  their  capacity.  If  NO  then  take  this  technology  assessment  test  here.    

4   Is  he  or  she  a  PHP  developer  and/or  designer?  

Yes        No     If  NO,  then  consider  using  crowdmap.  Link  Here.    

5   Do  you  want  a  lot  of  customiza(ons?  

Yes        No     CustomizaFons,  or  ****,  will  require  a  developer  and  likely  a  designer.  And  you  have  YES’s  for  ques(ons  3  &4  

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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!

Technology Ushahidi is a software, which means it requires access to certain technologies.

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)  

Here  are  some  ?ps  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  objec(ves  of  the  program?      ‣  What  is  the  budget  and  (meline  for  the  project?    ‣  Can  you  partner  with  others  for  non-­‐financial  support?    ‣  How  will  the  project  be  sustainable?    ‣  Is  there  a  geographic  focus?    (funders  ocen  support  specific  loca(ons)    ‣  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  migraFng  exisFng  data  into  the  Ushahidi  plaAorm  

Resources & Funding

Resources Here are some resources you may need. Fill out the cost that you will need too.

Resource   Cost  Project  Manager  

Developer  

Designer  

Project  Manager  

Volunteers/Coordinators  

Campaign  Adver(sing  

Servers  

Computers  

Phone/SMS  expenses  

Monitoring/Evalua(on  

Training  Workshop  

Planning  Workshops  

General  Office/Equipment  

Other  

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  poten(al  licenses  

you  might  need,  for  example  for  holding  a  compe((on,  this  can  ocen  be  bureaucra(c  and  take  (me  to  organise.  NOTE  Calculate  ?me  for  the  design  and  

prin?ng  or  produc?on  of  all  your  materials,  making  a  website  or  flyer  and  prin?ng  it  can  take  a  few  weeks.  

(Buferfly  Works  Toolbox)      

Planning & Project timeline

Example project timelines

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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  mee(ngs&  workshops  early  to  make  sure  that  all  partners  have  similar  expecta(ons  and  understand  their  roles/responsibili(es  •  Plan  your  media/adver(sing  campaigns  early,  determine  the  cost,  and  how  you  will    inform  people  of  your  project  and  set  expecta(ons.    

 

PROJECT  EXAMPLES    

ELECTION  MONITORING    

Staff  and  Volunteers  for  the  Uchaguzi  Kenya  Project  

(  2010  Kenya  Referedum)  –  recommend  3-­‐6  months  for  planning  around  a  specific  

elec(on  days.    

Project  Goal/Objec?ves/an?cipated  impact  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________    

Reasons  for  mapping  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________    

Partnerships  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________    

Informa?on/Communica?on  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  Marke?ng  Media  Plan    _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________  Technology  Assessment  _____________________________________________________________________________  _____________________________________________________________________________    

Below  is  informa(on  about  your  project  that  you  entered  in  the  first  toolbox  (On  the  online  tool,  what  you  have  filled  out  in  the  previous  panels  will  automaFcally  show  up  here!)  

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

support@ushahidi.com or wiki.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!

Toolbox #2

Implementation

Why do the toolbox?

Checklist TOOLBOX 1- SELF ASSESSMENT   TOOLBOX 2- IMPLEMENTATION TOOLBOX 3 - USING YOUR INFORMATION

✔

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!

Toolbox #2 Implementation

This toolbox will help you implement your project using the Ushahidi/Crowdmap instance : •  Review of your work from Toolbox #1 •  Choosing the platform that will work best for your project (Ushahidi or Crowdmap) •  Understanding and planning roles and responsibilities •  Think about information inflows and outflows •  Plan a verification process that will link directly to action •  Create a marketing plan •  Build a feedback loop •  Plan for a volunteer team •  Plan and implement training for your members and partners

Project  Goal/Objec/ves/an/cipated  impact  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Reasons  for  mapping  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Partnerships  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Informa/on/Communica/on  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Marke/ng  Media  Plan    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  Technology  Assessment    _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  

The  database  will  auto-­‐generate  the  following:    

I  would  like  to  make  changes…    

Let’s  move  on!    

Before moving into toolbox 2, here is a review of your work from the assessment toolbox….

   

•  Allows  you  to  set  up  your  own  deployment  of  the  Ushahidi  Pla?orm  without  having  to  install  it  on  your  own  web  server  

•  Does  not  require  installaCon  •  Fastest  and  simplest  installaCon  of  the  Ushahidi  pla?orm.  •  Built  to  handle  informaCon  coming  out  of  a  crisis.  •  No  need  for  a  developer  •  Fewer  plug-­‐ins  •  Open  data  /  unable  to  password  protect  

 Learn  more  on  the  website  

Which one will work best for you project?

TIPS: A technology developer (or tech savvy person) can install your Ushahidi instance and you or other team members can install Crowdmap. There is a very comprehensive Ushahidi User guide, that will help take you every step of the way.

Choosing the platform that will work best for your project

     •  A  pla?orm  for  organizaCons  with  more  tech  experience.  •  Needs  to  be  downloaded  to  your  own  server  •  A  good  fit  for  a  project  that  has  tech  experience  and  

developer  support.  •  Allows  for  customizaCon.    •  You  can  own  the  data    

Check  out  the  demo…..    

TIPS:  Community  users  believe  that  defining  roles  and  responsibiliCes  early  in  a  Ushahidi  project  is  very  important  to  it’s  success.    

Let’s  collaborate!    STOP  HERE  and  consider  having  a  workshop  with  your  partners  and  audience  to  agree  upon  

roles  and  responsibili@es  for  your  project!!!  

Planning roles and responsibilities for your project will depend on the size of your project. Choose the option that best fits your project:

LARGE    

medium    

small  

Planning  a  country-­‐wide  project,  one  that  involves  many  partners,  or  will  be  collecCng  large  amounts  of  informaCon  

Crisis  Mapping  à  HaiC,  Libya  ElecCon  Monitoringà  Kenya/Uganda  

Planning  a  small  audience  outreach  program  to  collect  and  share  with  a  single,  specific  community  

Unsung  Peace  Heroes/Building  Bridges      

Short-­‐term  deployment  with  one  to  three  volunteers.  Lower  targets  for  volume  and  outreach.  

 I  Vote  Because  -­‐  hZp://ivotebecause.ca/    

Understanding Roles/Responsibilities

Here are some example roles from other deployments:

1)  To the right examples- ->

Example TOR’s Leadership Lessons Learned Roles in Crisis icon     Roles in Election

Monitoring

Project  Manager  (PM)   Responsible  for  keeping  the  coordinators  up  to  date  on  the  project,  monitor  acCviCes,  and  communicate  what  needs  to  be  done  for  the  project.  Will  organize  meeCngs,  dra_  agendas  and  reports.      

Admin  Coordinator   Has  direct  access  to  the  Ushahidi  pla?orm  and  is  responsible  for  overseeing  the  approval  of  reports.  Selects  a  small  team  with  access  to  this  site.  Will  be  responsible  for  idenCfying  mistakes  in  reports.    

Technology  Coordinator   O_en  a  technical  advisor  who  is  responsible  for  managing  all  technical  problems.  For  example,  will  change  categories,  basemaps,    &  sms  syncing  programs  Works  with  a  PHP  Developer  and/or  GIS  expert.  Not  all  projects  require  a  PHP  or  GIS  expert,  especially  if  you  are  using  Crowdmap.    

Volunteer/Training  Coordinator   He/she  will  keep  track  of  the  volunteers  and  will  coordinate  the  division  of  volunteers  (ex,  mappers,  monitors  and  admins).  Requires  three  different  tasks:  recruiCng,  training  and  coordinaCng.      

Media/Outreach  Coordinator   Responsible  for  the  pla?orm  messaging  to  the  crowd/community  and  media  and  manages  relaConships  with  journalists  and  general  media  in  general.  You  may  have  two  people  on  this  team  one  for  the  community/crowd  and  another  for  the  media/journalists.  Works  closely  with  the  PM  on  the  media/outreach  strategy.  

Emergency  Response  Coordinator   For  Crisis  related  Projects:  Responsible  with  a  team  to  constantly  monitor  and  process  reports  to  idenCfy  emergencies  and  to  provide  informaCon  to  responders.  Communicates  closely  with  the  project  manager  or  core  team.    

This  is  not  a  complete  list!  Consider  having  a  workshop  with  your  partners  and  audience  to  agree  upon  roles  and  responsibili@es  for  your  project!!!  

Understanding Roles/Responsibilities (large project example)

Role    (drop  down  box+  write  in)   Partners  (drop  down  box+  write  in)     Responsibility  (write  in)     Tasks  or  Specidic  act    (write  in)-­‐      

Community users from other deployments recommend a leadership team. Who will be part of your leadership team?

Planning Roles and Responsibilities

Job TOR’s Partner Agreements (MOU, etc.)

Learn more… icon     TOR job description

When  responding  to  a  crisis,  you  will  likely  need  to  plan,  recruit  volunteers,  and  build  partnerships  at  the  same  @me.    We  recommend  the  following  resources:    -­‐   The  StandbyTaskForce-­‐  hZp://blog.standbytaskforce.com/    -­‐   The  CrisisMappers  Network  www.crisismappers.net/        -­‐   The  Ushahidi  Manual    -­‐   wiki.ushahidi.com  

Planning Roles and Responsibilities Crises and Emergencies

One  of  the  most  appealing  reasons  to  use  Ushahidi/Crowdmap  is  the  potenCal  to  improve  communicaCon  and  informaCon  flow  between  groups  &  to  improve  knowledge  among  communiCes  and  to  help  people  make  decisions.  The  next  few  slides  will  help  you  create  the  informaCon  flows  using  Ushahidi/Crowdmap,  but  first  think  about  how  you  will  analyze  and  feedback  informaCon:    1)  How  will  you  analyze  your  informaCon?  

   2)  How  will  you  feedback  informaCon?    

Planning Information & Communication Flows

Examples  

Ushahidi  or  Crowdmap  Pla?orm  

The ‘crowd” or public community People who will freely send in information from an open community who are unknown to the program . For example; affected people during a crisis, citizens during an election. (need more examples here!)

A trusted or bounded community Individuals or Groups that are part of the community and also part of known set of reporters to the platform. For example: NGO workers reporting to a UN system, election monitors reporting into the system. Pre-identified trusted community members sending in human rights information, and even known first responders during a disaster.

Partners  who  will  send  &  receive  

informa@on  

Other organizations/partners- Organization that are partners involved in the program. This can be the organization that represents a bounded community (ex. Election monitoring group, UN Cluster, consortium) They can also be organization that wish to received analyzed information as well. ( Media/Journalists)

Ushahidi/Crowdmap Platform- This is where information from the group above will come into and will also be the location where analyzed or processed information may come from. Within this platform there may be more people involved to process/analyze and present information back to the wider community. Remember that on major part of the platform is internet and web-based!

Planning Information & Communication Flows Examples of the parts and groups that will help make up your information system

Determining information flows in the Usahahidi instance

Ushahidi/Crowdmap  Pla?orm  

Ushahidi  Map/Website  categories    layers    reports    staCsCcs  

 

Partners  who  will  send    

informa@on  

Other  groups  such  as  interna@onal  media  

Your thoughts?

EXAMPLES  

UNDP/OCHA COLOMBIA HAITI CRISIS MAP LIBYA CRISIS MAP

Planning Information & Communication Flows

Incoming Information Feedback loops and return of information

(is it possible to do a drag/drop function here? Where they would drag a group/partner into a circle? ) Drag your partners/group into the shapes- (auto-generated from assessment)

Add more partners….

Drag the arrows to show where the information will enter

Planning Information & Communication Flows Create the information flow and system that will best fit your project

Here  is  a  recap  of  your  informaCon  communicaCon  strategy  from  the  assessment  toolbox  

How do you plan to collect information the information you wish to map on the Ushahidi platform?

List the specific types of information that you will collect for your project:

make  changes    

Let’s  move  on!    

Information / Communication

     Face  to  Face       Radio       Other________________       Other________________  

     Email       Call  Center       Voice  Message       Facebook  

     SMS       Web       TwiNer       Smart  phone  apps  

Informa/on     How  will  it  be  collected?  

 (drop  down  or  write  in..)  

XXX  camp   sms,  phone  

XXXX  hospital   sms,  phone  

CATEGORY  

Camp  LocaCons  

Hospital  (funcConing)  

How  will  this  informa/on  be    categorized?  

Informa/on     How  will  it  be  communicated  out?    (drop  down  or  write  in..)  

Refugee  camp  locaCons  in  X  region   UN  cluster  map,  SMS  alert,    

FuncConing  hospitals  in  Y  region   UN  Health  map,  Cluster  meeCng  

How  will  this  informa/on  be  communicated  out?  

EXAMPLE: You are quickly setting up a crisis map. Your goal is to identify the location of refugee camps to share who/what/where maps and share information about hospitals/ and clinics at UN Cluster meetings so organizations can plan shelter and health services.

The information for the UN meeting will be maps with refugee locations and functioning hospital locations

Categories you can create are “Camp Locations” and “Hospitals (functioning)”

Now think about how this information will feasibly be collected. a) crowd information b) NGO individuals reporting into the system.

1  

2  

3  

1  2  3  

Information & Categories Before creating / choosing categories, first understand how you will use the information

Add information types to the diagram that you just created

Have  you  completed  the  feedback  loop?  More  /ps…..  

(is it possible to do a drag/drop function here? Where they would drag a group/partner into a circle? ) Drag your information types next to the red and green arrows above (auto-generated from assessment)

.

Schema@c  diagram  from  Slide  11  inserted  here.    

Informa/on    OUT  (drop  down?)    

Auto  inserted  from  slide  13  

As  above  

Informa/on  IN  (drop  down)  

Auto  inserted  from  slide  13  

As  above  

Adding Information & Feedback Loops

Action & Response

Here are some ways that deployments have verified information: • You have the information from multiple reliable sources • You have two or more text messages from different phone numbers about the same incident. • Someone on your team has spoken with the person on the ground to get more detailed information about the report. • On of the providers of information is a partner or part of your “trusted network”

What is a trusted network?

Twitter challenges

Example verifications icon     The Guide to

verification

What  will  be  the  rules  to  verify  a  report?  (enter  text  here)        If  you  have  large  numbers  of  reports  coming  in  all  at  once,  how  will  you  prioriCze  which  ones  to  verify  quickly?        How  will  you  train  your  teams  on  how  to  verify?  (enter  text  here)      TIPS: If there is any doubt about a report, a good first step would be to mark the report as unverified, until you have the opportunity to investigate further.

Verifying Information One of the challenges of using a crowdsourcing tool is verification. When information enters the Ushahidi/

Crowdmap platforms you or your team will need to verify and confirm reports.

TIPS: How large is the area that you will place information on the map? (country, region, city, community)?

Consideration #1: What is the scope or size of your project. Do you plan to collect information for an entire country, a city, or just a community?

Consideration #2: Is there a map that exists of the areas that you are interested in? Some maps services may not have the area mapped. You should always check. If it does not exist? What are the next steps? What are your options? Ushahidi has 4 available providers, if you have a developer you can have them add another map to better fit your needs. The only customizable map is OpenStreetMap (OSM) Check out the following map providers here:

I  can’t  find  a  map  for  my  project  …..    Visual  Earth  

Choosing the Right Map When  using  Ushahidi  or  Crowdmap  your  verified  reports  will  be  placed  on  a  map.  

You  will  need  to  choose  a  map  that  best  fits  the  needs  of  your  project.  

If your project involved receiving messages from the “crowd” or the open community, it is very important that you have a clear message and strategy about what type of information you would like people to send in, and for what purpose you will be using the information.

Here  are  some  things  to  think  about:      HOW  DO  PEOPLE  ALREADY  BROADCAST  INFORMATION  TO  ONE  ANOTHER?  Think  about  the  ways  that  people  communicate  with  one  another  about  informaCon.    If  the  community  that  you  want  to  send  in  message  watches  television,  reads  the  newspaper,  or  listen  to  the  radio,  this  may  be  a  very  effecCve  way  to  inform  people  of  your  project  and    why  you  want  them  to  send  you  informaCon.      KEEP  IT  SIMPLE  Don’t  forget  about  face  to  face  communicaCons!    Think  about  how  people  can  spread  the  word  in  local  meeCngs,  through  community  leaders,  and  other  basic  communicaCon  pathways.      TRUST    If  you  are  asking  people  to  provide  sensiCve  informaCon  how  can  you  create  trust  so  that  they  will  feel  safe  and  comfortable  to  provide  informaCon?  Who  will  help  you  achieve  this?  (community  leaders,  etc)  and  how  long  will  it  take?    TIMELINE  Think  carefully  about  the  Cme  it  will  take  to  launch  your  campaign.    If  you  are  planning  on  using  different  media  plan  for  Cme  to  contact  radio  staCons,  money  for  prinCng  fliers,  and  more  Cme  to  build  relaConships  and  trust  with  community  leaders  who  may  promote  your  project.      SMS  USE  The  presence  of  mobile  networks  does  not  always  mean  that  people  will  easily  and  freely  SMS  text.  If  you  expect  most  of  your  informaCon  to  come  by  SMS  ,  invesCgate  whether  or  not  people  are  literate,  feel  comfortable  texCng,  etc.      COST    Although  using  more  media  channels  increase  your  campaign,  it  will  likely  also  increase  the  cost  of  your  project.    One  inexpensive  and  very  effecCve    way  is  to  use  community  leaders  and  community  organizaCons  but  this  requires  Cme  and  trust-­‐  which  you  may  not  always  have  especially  during  an  emergency  or  crisis.        

TIPS:  Many  users  believe  in  the  importance  of  advance  outreach  via  media  coverage,  adverCsing,  workshops  &  demonstraCons.  

Messaging / Campaign How will people find out about your initiative?

The specific words that you use in your campaign message will not only determine the type of messages you received, but will also influence the expectations of the users or “crowd”. Here are some examples of successes and challenges.

Needs    Accurate  Content  here!  

This  message  generated  thousand  of  messages,  but  one  of  the  challenges  was  the  large  number  of  needs.  In  addiCon  many  people  believed  that  if  they  texted  in  their  need,  that  there  would  always  be  a  response.    

This  web  banner  was  one  of  many  message  that  Building  Bridges  use  to  have  people  map  peace  iniCaCves  around  the  world.  

Needs  content  here  for  snowmageddon  

MORE  EXAMPLES  

The Message What will you actually say?

HERE  ARE  SOME  THINGS  TO  THINK  ABOUT    • If  you  decide  not  to  respond,  then  it  is  extremely  important  that  you  make  this  clear  to  your  audience  to  ensure  that  there  are  no  expectaCons  around  the  project  or  that  there  is  no  informaCon  gathering  system  that  you  cannot  or  are  not  set  up  to  meet.    

• How  will  you  ensure  that  there  are  not  expectaCons  around  the  project  or  informaCon  gathering  system  that  you  cannot  or  are  not  set  up  to  meet?  

• Do  you  have  a  communicaCon  plan  when  you  are  unable  to  fulfill  the  promise  of  response  that  you  messaged  out  in  the  past?    

• How  will  you  return  the  informaCon  to  the  community/local  district/those  who  provided  so  that  they  can  use  it  for  decision  making  or  program  intervenCon?  

HERE  ARE  SOME  EXAMPES  OF  USER  EXPERIENCES    (please  help  with  content  here!!!)    

TIPS: There are different ways to manage expectations, like conducting local media campaigns, or sending automatic responses to messages saying "thank you for message, now the message will be processed", and so on. (Anahi)

Managing the Expectations of your Partners & Audience When using the Ushahidi/Crowdmap platform, people often expect a response

How will people find out about your initiative? What communication pathways will you use?

TIPS:  If  you  have  Cme,  we  recommend  that  you  touch  base  with  your  partners  and  users  to  see  how  they  will  interpret  your  message.    

Write down some sample messages that you will you for your campaign

How will you manage expectation from communities and the crowd?

Messaging / Campaign How will people find out about your initiative?

Volunteers / Data Handling Team The human resources needed to run the platform

To be completed soon. Please add ideas here!

Training

THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING TOOLBOX #2!

Please save this file and add your name to the title, then return it to support@ushahidi.com or wiki.ushahidi.com

You will receive a report from Toolbox #2 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!

Appendix

Local  AssociaCons  

     Local  Responders-­‐  police,  redes  social        Agencies/Intl  Orgs-­‐  PDP,  defenseria,  NGO,  UN  

Key  node(s)  -­‐ Trusted  by  community  -­‐ Trusted  by  the  system    Community  

Individual(s)   Pla?orm  SIHCE  SIDCE  

Key  Components  -­‐ Fact  -­‐ Request  -­‐ DocumentaCon  -­‐   Proof  of  Support  

PlaYorm  Administrators  -­‐ Informa@on  management  -­‐ Maintain  flow  of  informa@on  from  nodes  to  commiNee  -­‐   technical  knowledge  to  maintain  plaWorm  infrastructure  

Government  -­‐ Governor  -­‐ Secretariats  -­‐ Advisors      

Public  Advocacy  RecommendaCons  

Rapid  response  CommiZee  -­‐ validate/monitor/and  analyze  informaCon  -­‐   local  organizaCons  rapidly  respond    -­‐ Coordinate  &  collecCvely  present  informaCon  to  government  -­‐ key  representaCve  of  organizaCons  

-­‐     

CollecCve  Report  

Policy  

Monitoring  

Individual  Agency  Recommenda/ons  

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Toolbox  #3    

Real-­‐Time  Evalua-on  

So  you’ve  done  all  of  the  planning  to  implement  your  Ushahidi/Crowdmap  pla?orm.  We’re  here  to  help  you  self-­‐evaluate  how  it’s  working!  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

TWO  WAYS  TO  USE  THIS  TOOLBOX    1)  The  project  is  happening  now….I’m  ready  to  learn  about  how  the  project  is  

doing  to  make  immediate  changes  to  improve  the  project!    

2)  Well…  My  project  is  over,  but  I  want  to  learn  about  the  successes  and  challenges!    

 

✔  

✔  

A  

B  

The  first  step  is  to  ask  the  following  big  ques-ons….  

•  Is  the  project  fulfilling  its  goals?  

•  Is  the  project  fulfilling  its  objec-ves?  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

Answer  the  following  big  ques-ons….   Video  Audio  Image  Text  

Goals:  Do  you  agree  or  disagree  with  the  following  statement?  

Strongly  disagree  

strongly  Agree  

 agree    disagree   undecided  

The  project  has  :  “Goals  from  implementa5on  toolbox,  panel  #4,  imported  here”  

Strongly  disagree  

strongly  Agree  

 agree    disagree   undecided  

The  project  has  :  “Objec5ves  from  implementa5on  toolbox,  panel  #4,  imported  here”  

Objec<ves:  Do  you  agree  or  disagree  with  the  following  statement?  

Why?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             more  

goals….  

Why?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             More  

objec-ves….  

How  are  you  achieving  your  program  objec-ves?  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

Which  parts  of  your  project  is  working  well?  and  helping  to  achieve  your  objec-ves?       Partnerships     Technology     Campaign/Messaging       Informa-on  Flows      Ac-on/Feedback  

   Communica-on     Maps/Visualiza-on    Informa-on  Security     Volunteers/Teams    Other,  please  describe______  

Which  parts  of  the  project  need  improvement  and  may  be  preven-ng  the  project  from  achieving  its  objec-ves  

   Partnerships     Technology     Campaign/Messaging       Informa-on  Flows      Ac-on/Feedback  

   Communica-on     Maps/Visualiza-on    Informa-on  Security     Volunteers/Teams    Other,  please  describe______  

User  ac5ons:    A)  select  2  from  “working  well”  and  2  from  “needs  improvement.    B)  select  all  that  apply  

So  now  you’ve  learned  from  &  evaluated  your  project  …What  

are  your  ac-on  plans  for  change?  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

Some  way  to  auto-­‐import  the  selected  categories  on  slide  6.  Here  is  a  RTE  example    

Findings   Ac<on  Plan   Check-­‐in  (EXAMPLE)  Partnerships-­‐  We  have  a  strong  rela-onships  with  our  community  partners,  we  trust  each  other.  We  have  monthly  mee-ngs  to  keep  our  rela-onship  strong.  (SUCCESS!)  

(write  your  ac5on  plan  here  )  We  will  con5nue  to  have  monthly  mee5ngs,  and  will  look  for  people  to  support  the  workshop  space  to  help  con5nue  to  bring  people  together.    

(when  will  you  check  in  to  see  how  you’re  doing  with  your  ac-on  plan?)  

(EXAMPLE)  Informa-on  Security-­‐  our  informa-on  security  plan  is  working,  Our  servers  are  secure  and  there  is  a  con-ngency  plan.  Our  partners  provide  monthly  feedback  about  their  concerns.  There  has  been  no  security  events  yet.  (SUCCESS)  

(EXAMPLE)  Volunteers-­‐  It  has  been  hard  to  keep  our  volunteers.  They  say  the  long  hours  and  travel  are  difficult.  It  is  difficult  for  the  project  manager  to  train  each  new  volunteer  every  day.  (CHALLENGE)  

 

  Print  your  ac-on  plan  now!….  

Print  out  your  Evalua-on  Here  are  the  different  parts  of  your  evalua-on  

 (you  can  click  on  each  one  to  print  specific  sec5ons)    –   (autofill  in  base  on  what  is  check  on  slide  5)  

–     (autofill  in  base  on  what  is  check  on  slide  5)  –     (autofill  in  base  on  what  is  check  on  slide  5)  

–   (autofill  in  base  on  what  is  check  on  slide  5)  –   (autofill  in  base  on  what  is  check  on  slide  5)  –   (autofill  in  base  on  what  is  check  on  slide  5)    

•  Print  all  of  your  checklists  and  ac-on  plan   Print  your  self-­‐evalua-on  

report  here….  

Partnerships  Checklist  Video  Audio  Image  Text  

   1.    Which  partnerships  in  your  project  are  working  well?  Why?    

 

   2.  Which  partnerships  in  your  projects  are  difficult?  Why?    

   

     3.  Is  there  trust  between  your  partnerships?  Why  or  why  not?  

     4.  If  your  audience  include  local  communi-es  are  they  also  your  partners?  How  is  it  going?  

 

 

Technology  Checklist  Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.    How  is  the  technology  support  (  example,  server  support,  PHP  support,  ***)?  What  are  the  challenges?    

     2.  Do  you  feel  your  partners,  volunteers,  and  audience  are  comfortable  with  the  technology?  (SMS,  ushahidi  instance/crowdmap,  etc,  viewing  the  map)    

     3.  Are  your  volunteer  or  teams  who  are  responsible  to  processing  messages,  reports,  comfortable  with  the  technology?  What  are  the  challenges?  

 

   

Campaign/Messaging  Checklist   Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.    Do  you  believe  that  your  audience  (or  crowd)  understand  the  purpose  of  sending  in  informa-on?    Why  or  Why  not.    

     2.  Do  you  believe  that  your  audience  understands  what  you  are  doing  with  the  informa-on?  And  how  they  will  be  able  to  see  the  results?  

     3.  Are  the  expecta-ons  of  your  audience  the  same  as  your  expecta-ons?  Why  or  Why  not?  

     4.  What  needs  to  con-nue…..     to  keep  your  messaging/campaign  successful  and  sustainable?       to  improve  your  campaign  strategy.    

   

Informa-on  Flows  Checklist  Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.  Are  you  collec-ng  the  type  of  informa-on  you  planned  on?  Is  it  helping  you  achieve  your  goals  and  objec-ves?  How?  How  not?  

          2.  How  are  you  analyzing  informa-on  (  verifying,  confirming,  mapping)  What  is  working  well  and  what  can  be  improved?  

     3.    Do  you  feel  now  that  your  categories  are  appropriate,  why  or  why  not?  

          3.  Click  here  to  evaluate  and  revise  (  or  re-­‐evaluate)  your  informa-on  flow  diagram      

Ac-on/Response/Feedback  Checklist  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.    Is  the  informa-on  collected  being  used  in  the  way  you  planned?         2.  Have  you  been  communica-ng  back  to  your  target  audience/or  the  public?         3.  How  well  do  you  and  your  partners  feel  the  report  and  maps  are  returning  to  decision  makers  for  program  change?  

     4.  If  it  has  been  more  difficult  than  you  thought  to  share  informa-on  and  the  maps  with  your  par-cipants  and  audience,  why  do  you  think  this  is  happening?        5.  Click  here  to  see  your  informa-on  flow  and  feedback  diagram,  what  would  you  keep  the  same  and  what  would  you  do  differently?        

Communica-ons  Checklist  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

   1.  Are  your  par-cipants/crowd  communica-ng/sending  you  informa-on  in  ways  that  you  thought?    Why  or  why  not?    

     2.  What  part  of  these  communica-on  successes  are  due  to  technology?      

     3.  What  part  of  these  communica-on  successes  are  due  to  trust,  other  reasons?        

Maps/Visualiza-on  Checklist  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

   1.  What  do  the  dots  on  the  map  mean  to  your  project?  To  your  par-cipants?  To  Others?          

      2.    Are  people  specifically  using  the  map  for  decision  making  and  ac-on?  How  are  they  using  it?  If  they  are  not,  what  are  they  telling  you  as  the  reasons  why  they  are  not  using  it?    

     3.  How  do  all  of  your  audiences  have  access  to  the  map?  Do  they  know  the  way  to  find  needed  informa-on  on  the  map?  If  they  can’t  or  have  difficulty,  why?  How  have  they  told  you  ways  to  improved  the  access  and    find  informa-on  on  the  map?      

Informa-on,  Privacy    and    Security  Checklist  

Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.  Do  you  have  a  current  program  strategy    for  privacy  and  security?  If  so  what  is  working  well,  what  will  need  improvements?    If  not  write  here  what  your  strategy  will  be.  

     2.  How  is  your  project  managing  the  risks  of  sharing  informa-on  (including  the  maps)?  

     3.    Ask  all  of  your  partners  and  contact  your  par-cipants  to  ask  them  if  they  feel  secure  providing  informa-on.  List  the  answers  here.           3.  If  your  partners  and  par-cipants  tell  you  they  are  worried  about  privacy  what  are  their  recommenda-ons  on  improving?  

 

Teams/Volunteer  Checklist  Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.                   2.    

          3.        

(Create  your  own)  Checklist  Video  Audio  Image  Text  

     1.  

          2.  

        3.            4.            5.            6.        

THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING TOOLBOX #3!

Please save this file and add your name to the title, then return it to support@ushahidi.com or wiki.ushahidi.com

You will receive a report from Toolbox #3 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!

Appendix: Evaluation Blog Series

1

Kenya Evaluation Project

Kenya Evaluation Blog Series Ushahidi-Kenya Evaluation: First Steps

by Melissa Tully and Jennifer Chan This is the first in a series of posts documenting a 9-month Ushahidi evaluation project in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative supported by the Knight Foundation. During the first two weeks of January, we traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, to begin phase one of a 9-month evaluation of Ushahidi-Kenya projects. As part of a team, Jennifer and I met with individuals and groups who have incorporated the Ushahidi software into their programming as well as other partners to better understand how organizations have implemented and used the platform to improve their programming and organizational goals. This evaluation has multiple purposes. In addition to writing case studies of some interesting and dynamic projects that use the Ushahidi platform: Unsung Peace Heroes and Building Bridges, and Uchaguzi in both Kenya and Tanzania; we plan to document our progress through a series of blog posts; and to create practical and interactive tools. These resources can help organizations decide if Ushahidi is right for them through a self-assessment and evaluation process. Implementers can use these resources throughout the entire project period to track their progress and strengthen monitoring and evaluation. We’re in the very early stages of development, but based on discussions with people in Kenya who have used Ushahidi and members of the Ushahidi team and community, we think we’re developing some very useful stuff. Currently, we’re focusing on the “pre-implementation assessment” and “implementation” resources so that we can get feedback from current and future deployers on these key areas. We’re working closely with the Ushahidi team and others involved in developing the Ushahidi Community page to integrate the case studies and tools into this part of the site and to add to the already existing resources for Ushahidi users. Another goal is to link to guides, case studies, tips and tricks or anything else out there created by the vast Ushahidi community worldwide to better serve the entire user community.

Wrapping up Phase 1 of the Ushahidi-Kenya Evaluation by Melissa Tully and Jennifer Chan This is the second in a series of posts documenting a 9-month Ushahidi evaluation project in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative supported by the Knight Foundation. The Ushahidi-Kenya evaluation is off to a strong start. Since returning from Nairobi in January, 2011 we have worked on the self-evaluation and assessment tool for individuals and organizations interested in using Ushahidi. The purpose of the tool is to help interested organizations learn about the Ushahidi platform via a web-based learning tool and to provide access to community resources and to actively plan their Ushahidi project, through a project cycle. An off-line manual will also be available for those with limited bandwidth. The learning tool has three parts:

1. The assessment module will help new users a) incorporate Ushahidi into project goals and objectives b) plan to collect information that will be mapped, c) identify partnerships and technology resources. This tool may include budget and project timeline templates.

2. The implementation module will help users go through setting up the instance and further plan any media/publicity campaigns to help information collection and much more. It is meant to support organizations as they launch and maintain their Ushahidi project.

2

3. The analysis & evaluation module will support users as they actively collect, map and make decisions with their Ushahidi instance. It will also provide tools with which to evaluate the project – helping organizations report their successes and challenges to donors, the user community and others.

This image is an example of a screen shot of the Assessment Tool. Organizations can learn about the instance types (icons on the left) and link to examples of how other organizations have used Ushahidi. We hope that this will help new and existing community users learn and make decision for their projects and programs. Jennifer is off to Nairobi this week to share our progress and get feedback from the local Ushahidi community. We are completing our first case

study on Unsung Peace Heroes and Building Bridges. These two projects used Ushahidi to map peace related information. Unsung Peace Heroes was designed to recognize individuals who participated in peace efforts in the violent aftermath of the December 2007 Kenyan General Election. These heroes often risked their lives to help members of their community. Building Bridges is an extension of Unsung Peace Heroes. Building Bridges was designed to map peace initiatives throughout Kenya as well as recognize and reward Kenyans who participate in peace initiatives and promote conflict resolution. These two projects offer interesting lessons for the greater Ushahidi community. Media Focus on Africa Foundation and Butterfly Works, the implementing organizations:

• Relied on strong partnerships with local organizations. • Used multimedia strategies including radio, television, newspaper and online advertising;

interpersonal communication at events throughout Kenya; mobile communication and social media.

• Produced materials in English and Kiswahili. • Had clear goals and timelines. • Customized the Ushahidi platform to meet their needs. This was particularly true for

Building Bridges as they integrated Ushahidi with Joomla, a free and open source content management system.

The full case study will be available for download later this year. As we wrap up this phase, we will move onto phase two, which includes a case study ofUchaguzi in both Kenya and Tanzania and completion of the self-assessment tools. We look forward to continued feedback from the Ushahidi community.

3

Kenya Ushahidi Evaluation Phase 2: Making Progress with Community Feedback!

by Melissa Tully and Jennifer Chan This is the third in a series of posts documenting a 9-month Ushahidi evaluation project in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative supported by the Knight Foundation. We have made great progress on the Ushahidi Kenya evaluation. Jennifer has been back at the iHub continuing to build the 3-part assessment and self-evaluation tool. The goal of this toolbox is to help interested organizations learn about the Ushahidi platform using a web based interactive tool, also with a low bandwidth and no bandwidth option as detailed in our earlier post.

In Nairobi, Jennifer met with organizations and individuals that have used the Ushahidi platform for election monitoring, peace campaigns, crisis response and other community programs. She also met with new organizations interested in the toolbox. They will be testing Toolbox #1 and #2 for their projects and also providing recommendations on how to improve them. Here are some examples of what they look like. Each toolbox will have different sections that will help you work through different stages of your project. Like this one from the Toolbox #2: In Toolbox #1 you can select a type that best fits your program, and click on links to other Ushahidi instances to learn more about what people have done in the past or even doing right now. You can also take a technology assessment. There will be rotating panels where you see the RED circle arrow that will show you more tips and examples. Thank you everyone for sharing very helpful tips and examples and for testing out the tools! It’s still a work in-progress but we’re looking for more people to test the toolbox, especially if you have used Ushahidi in the past. Please let us know if you would like to help out by adding a comment to this post.

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Join the Ushahidi.ke Evaluation Launch By Heather Leson You are invited to attend our Ushahidi.ke Evaluation Launch on Thursday, August 25, 2011 at the iHub in Nairobi, Kenya. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Ushahidi are collaborating to build educational tools to help community users. Three toolboxes have been built by and for the community. The Assessment, Implementation, and Output toolboxes are interactive and will allow people to self-assess and evaluate the different stages in using Ushahidi or Crowdmap for their projects. For more information about the project check out the blog series: Ushahidi Kenya Evaluation First Steps Wrapping up phase 1 of the Ushahidi Kenya Evaluation Kenya Ushahidi evaluation phase 2: Making progress with community feedback The Ushahidi .ke Evaluation Launch has two goals: *introduce you to some of the research findings, and *give you a chance to interact shape the content. We need your help to test Ushahidi toolboxes. Your feedback will help Ushahidi users in Kenya and around the world. Register today: Thursday, August 25, 2011 10:00 – 16:00 EAT iHub Nairobi Kenya

Schedule (subject to change) 10:00 – 10:30 Introductions and Research overview 10:30 – 10:45 iHub Research Program 10:45 – 11:00 Break 11:00 – 11:15 Ushahidi.ke demos 11:15 – 12:30 Toolkit interactive sessions 12:30 – 13:30 Lunch 13:30 – 14:45 Policy working groups (eg. usability, security) 14:45 – 15:00 Break 15:00 – 16:00 Group Brainstorm and Next steps We will provide lunch and toolbox documentation. We ask that participants register to help us plan accordingly. The Ushahidi.ke Evaluation Launch is in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and supported by the Knight Foundation. More details

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We will be using Meetup to build community events around the world. Whenever possible, we’ll provide streaming and interactive participation. There will be more event announcements soon. If you have ideas or want to host a meet-up, I’d be happy to hear from you. Thanks! Heather L.

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Perspectives from the MamaBits team: Rukia and Tobias

By Heather Leson Preparations for the Ushahidi .ke Evaluation launch are running full speed ahead. Jennifer Chan, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and I visited Rukia Sebit and Tobias Ouma ofMamaBits, the coordinators of Building Bridges deployment. Building Bridges is a project to encourage people

to encourage, map and connect people working on peace initiatives in Kenya. Their work was one of the featured deployments for the evaluation.

Building Bridges Rukia and Tobias provided further feedback on their deployment: successes, observations and things to improve.

Highlights: • OUTREACH: Communication targeting of

audiences differed for rural and urban areas and diverse age groups. For example, rural areas were reached by radio rather than newspaper. However, the radio programs were sometimes aired in different vernacular language to accommodate all listeners. The impact was great, even neighbouring countries such as Uganda received the information from the website and created their profile online. This required more intensive report verification based on location. The power of mobile in .ke is amazing. Telco providers like Safaricom will allow short codes to accompany hash-tags which will redirect to a website, like Building Bridges. The campaign was successful due to the SMS program and pervasive use in .ke.

• REPORTS: As part of the campaign, the Building Bridges team telephoned over 6000 people. These calls were often to verify the content or to request clarification. Some content was translated into English for the map from telephone calls. Some reports were web-based submissions in Swahili. It would have been useful to have a bilingual map: Swahili and English. People who filed reports often required feedback or follow-up on their content. These involved counselor-type telephone calls. This community approach was essential to build comfort and trust. Some report providers preferred that their content be provided verbally and their report listed by “peacemaker” to maintain their privacy. The majority of the reports were submitted via SMS with the other reports far below in numbers (in descending order): telephone calls, email and, lastly, web-based form reports.

• KEY LESSONS: The plan was revised to accommodate more SMS reports (sometimes 700 a day). Education (digital literacy) was a large component of the telephone calls for feedback loops. The number targets were given less weight over time in lieu of qualitative content and relationship-building with the reporters. And, this type of project is easily replicable in other regions using Ushahidi’s platform.

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A very special thanks to Rukia and Tobias for their contribution to this project and for their time today. Check out their other projects including mobile education games such as Get H20. There are still a few spots left open for the Ushahidi .Ke Evaluation Launch. Register via Meet-up. We will be testing toolboxes, talking best practices and building forward. Heather L.