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Why are we doing this?
The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), an open-source website to aggregate and present an unprecedented amount of information on every living species, is looking for Drupal or PHP programmers to participate in an upcoming code sprint. We will cover the expenses of all participants to travel to Chicago and work on an exciting new application called LifeDesk. LifeDesk is a Drupal-based application that will allow users to contribute knowledge about species in their areas of interest. The initial version is aimed at "experts" that will manage their own LifeDesks and will produce information that is scientifically vetted for inclusion in the EOL, with later versions aimed for anyone with any educational background. The idea is to create taxa-centric communities to allow anyone, for example, an avid birder, to create a place to store and organize information they and other people in their community collect. Each LifeDesk will be linked to the EOL so that the vetted content can be easily integrated onto EOL species pages. LifeDesk is still in progress, and it is hoped that this sprint will help work toward finishing it!
What's a code sprint?
A code sprint is getting developers in a room for a set amount of time – usually one to two days – and just writing code. That’s it. You’re not teaching anything. Participants will learn from others as they go, but the focus is not on instruction. The goal is to create working software. Code sprints are also sometimes called hackathons or codeathons.
What development projects we will focus on
- Taxonomy Module: We need a mechanism to deal with large taxonomies (i.e. several hundred thousand terms) in a robust and responsive way. The EDIT ScratchPad developers have started this work with a nested set representation that significantly improves performance.
- Taxonomy Manager: Extend to include more metadata and ability to move terms to/from synonym table. The taxonomy module is great for biology, but we need to extend this to include more information about the terms (names). For example, is the term a common name or is it a scientific name? This means transforming the synonym table in Drupal to be a first class citizen in the core.
- Permissions capability on the assignment of terms to content. Lots of taxonomists want to ability to assign nodes to their colleagues, but they don't want to overwhelm them with a massive list of names from which to choose. We suspect this capability will be applicable to all sorts of other, non-biological Drupal environments.
- Import and export of taxonomy terms in a very structured way using an import API and an export API. The eventual goal is to permit communal and open development of global taxonomic catalogs along with their species page representations for the benefit of all of biology. Without mechanisms to permit ingestion of names and full classifications from LifeDesks and other hosted environments, the EOL will have difficulty presenting its species pages. We first need to know about the names and where they should be placed in any hierarchy!
By the end of the event, we expect to have all contributions tested and documented and we will share these advancements with the Drupal community.
When?
Monday, September 8 to Thusrday, September 11, 2008
Where?
The Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois
Accommodations: Palmer House Hilton
How do you tell us you want to participate and what do you need?
We're looking for 30-40 experienced Drupal and PHP developers. We're especially interested in participants with strengths in the taxonomy module, but this isn't necessarily a requirement because we'll devote some time on the first day to describe the landscape and goals.
We'll have a wireless and wired network. So, please bring a laptop with you.
Contact
If you have any questions or proposals concerning the sprint, please Contact Us.
What about food?
We'll keep you well fed with snacks, lunches, and a big banquet at the completion of the event.