High-Level Project Summary
We developed COGNITIO - an all-in-one gateway platform for Earth Observations (EO) learning. We want to bridge the gap between training and learning to equip all learners including policymakers with relevant knowledge and skills to leverage EO for social impact. Cognitio aggregates its growing collection of EO courses and trainings from leading EO space agencies and organizations aiming to provide information for learners based on their skill level, thematic areas of interest, and/or technology stack. We also host our own learning management system. Learners have the option to take courses created by our course content providers directly on our platform.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
About Cognitio
Cognitio aims to enable quality EO education for all by bridging the gap between training and learning through an all-in-one gateway platform for all EO courses and trainings. Our mission is to empower all learners - policymakers, researchers, analysts, developers, NGO workers, and students - with knowledge and skills to leverage Earth Observations (EO) for social impact.
Our prototype can be accessed here: https://cognitio.cirrolytix.com/
Problem
EO has the potential to tackle social problems such as climate change challenges and natural disasters. While vast amounts of EO data continues to be generated, it becomes increasingly challenging to analyze and apply EO to support decision making. Policymakers need to be equipped with the most relevant knowledge and skills to use EO in their work. However, the lack of centralized information for prospective learners looking for the right EO courses can be overwhelming for someone who needs to build their capacity.
Our Solution
We propose COGNITIO as a platform that empowers learners to build their EO knowledge and skills through the following three core areas:
- Learn - Enable access to quality EO learning by providing relevant and unbiased information on all available EO courses and trainings
- Improve - Inspire learners to improve their acquired EO knowledge and skills through challenges, competitions and hackathons
- Connect - Build a community of EO learners to connect and share ideas with, grow, and lead together
How it Works
- Learner Perspective
Cognitio is an all-in-one gateway platform to EO learning. Cognitio aggregates its growing collection of EO courses and trainings from leading EO space agencies and organizations aiming to provide recommended courses and information for learners based on their preferred learning pathways: 1) Skill Level, 2) Thematic Areas of Interest, and/or 3) Technology Stack.
We also plan to host our own learning management system. Learners have the option to take courses created by registered course content providers directly on our platform.
- Content Course Provider Perspective
Course Content Providers can also register on the platform to contribute and add EO courses from other reputable agencies on the list. In addition to that, they can also upload their own course content directly on our learning management system.
- Solution Design
We provide a high-level overview of the solution design of our application.
The user of the application interfaces with information site to access the EO course catalog on the platform. The curated content listed on the platform is aggregated using a webscraper API developed by the team. The platform will also house the hackathon portal where users are redirected to take on challenges, join competitions, and compete in hackathons.
The Learning Management System Portal will deliver online EO courses created by registered course content providers. while a Community Forum Portal is a public forum for all-members of COGNITIO to connect with and discuss ideas.
We developed the current prototype version of Cognitio using open-source tools. The Information Site was built with vanilla web stack (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP) and the Course Content Aggregator, we used Django & Python.
We discuss in the following sections in more detail the Webscraper API and Content Managment System (CMS) tools that will be incorporated in the platform
A. Webscraper API
The image above shows that the team proposed to develop a web scraper API that will collect training resources from identified websites of EO course content providers and will be registered to the project application for its directory system
The image above shows CMS for the course content creator to publish the link of the training resources for the prototype and the team propose to develop a web scraper API that will collect training resources for every community platform and will be registered to the project application for its directory system. The web scraper main technology stack are python, selenium & fastAPI. The selenium will be the scraper tool and fastAPI for the REST API. The scraped data will be structured into a standard REST API that is acceptable to the main platform to register it seamlessly. If there is new data presented on the API end there will be a validation mechanism in the main platform that will check if it is a new training resource on that API end, This will restrict redundancy on the training resources in the platform.
Future Work
- As our current prototype only includes selected courses from the NASA ARSET catalog for demo purposes, we want to expand our collection and include more EO courses on the platform
- Build and deploy the Learning Management System using an open-source software
- Enhance the Learners Portal by adding gamification features (e.g., badges and leaderboard) and rewards system through challenges, hackathons, and competitions.
- Deploy a community forum where other learners and content providers can connect with each other
- Partner with space agencies, institutions, and non-profit organizations in the space sector on learning events, workshops, and hackathons
Space Agency Data
We used the NASA ARSET spreadsheet catalog courses as initial content to populate the course catalog on our prototype
Hackathon Journey
As a team of analytics professionals who are passionate about leveraging data for social impact, we want to address skills and knowledge gaps to empower all policymakers to make informed decisions. We understand how challenging it is to have access to the most relevant learning materials, hence we decided to work on this challenge. We enjoyed working on this challenge and hope to continue developing our solution.
We would like to thank our colleagues from Cirrolytix Research Services for their continued support and guidance.
References
NASA ARSET spreadsheet catalog courses
New strategy to support skills development for the space and geoinformation sector
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Photo by Yurkoman on Getty Images
Tags
l#ms, #eolearning, #cms, #capacitybuilding, #education