Ecopedia

EcoPedia

High-Level Project Summary

We created a gateway that lets you access EO resources from various websites and databases. It includes courses, workshops, webinars, catalogues, repositories, calendars, datasets and more! This solution solves the challenge by including all kinds and areas of knowledge related to EO. We also created a mobile application to make it more user-friendly. With a smooth UI and a clear classification of materials, the website is easy to navigate and you can find all the information you need about a course at a glance. We are also incorporating an AI module that transforms written transcripts of course to ASL as well as an in-platform live streaming portal to host events, so you can click on Earth!

Link to Final Project

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fTl_jtcQosbysS6jmTcw1cna2GnH_9TERh9x9NrT7rg/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Project "Demo"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lJTLipJh56piUtQOLj9H4PlBeN8LPHv2/view?usp=sharing

Detailed Project Description

Background and literature review:

When viewing all the previously available websites and databases, we found some major problems with some of these websites:

Very few of them, if any, had filtration tools and user-based recommendations.
Some of them only had difficult courses or advanced materials, while others offered paid courses, and others offered physical opportunities, but none of them was all-inclusive.
Some of them only included courses while others would post a webinar once in a while, it was very hard to find different types of education on the same website.
Databases lacked a user-friendly interface that was easy to navigate.
websites don't offer aid and support for those with disabilities

Methodology:

Using the previously mentioned findings, we created an integrated platform that consists of a website and a mobile application that addressed those issues and went on to add some features to make learning and expanding your knowledge easy, professional and enjoyable.

We created:

An all-inclusive virtual gateway that gathers information from trusted websites with variable degrees of complexity and different visualization methods.
The website has several categories, including: courses, workshops and webinars, diplomas and degrees, catalogues, repositories and tutorials, calendars, lectures and videos.
Search tools to help you find all data related to a specific topic or all topics included in one form of date (i.e search to find all data about wind speed or search to find all courses regardless of topic).
Users receive badges and encouragement for completing training, leaving reviews, etc..
Lecturers can volunteer knowledge by offering live sessions to talk about the latest achievements and developments in their fields, or to advise on potential career paths, etc
We are also incorporating an AI module that turns written transcripts of course videos into ASL (American Sign Language) and we are looking to add more methods of inclusion.
The website includes links to constantly updating calendars of new trainings and opportunities, both in person and online.
The website also includes courses that are covered in two or three languages and we are looking to expand that area to make knowledge accessible for everyone .
We also created a mobile application that is easy to navigate so learners can access courses at any time.
The titles of all trainings include their mode: online/ offline and whether they are free or paid. We also included the difficulty levels where applicable.
Course recommendations are available to learners based on their most watched areas of knowledge.
Learners can also access knowledge from a specific learning provider under learning providers tab
Permitted users can also submit courses to the website for approval

Tools, coding languages, softwares:

To create the website and mobile application, we used:

Contabo Server
Plesk dashboard
laravel framework (PHP) (web)
flutter (mobile application), cross-platform. Android/ IOS
sign language processing AI module
Implementing Agora third party to deal with high quality and live streaming conference videos (HD to 4K with 60ms lag)

What we hope to achieve, future aspects:

Train AI module to be aware of context
Write and proofread transcripts of courses rather than having them automated
Crowdsource for users who can't afford trainings and degrees
Add more courses in other languages and translate crucial courses from English to other languages
Attract more industry professionals to create a community based on knowledge
Incorporate a chatting system that lets you communicate and share knowledge

Space Agency Data

We tried to use all of the resources provided in the resources tab, here are the space agency websites we used:

We used those websites for different parts of our gateway, some were course providers like ARSET and EO college, some were dataset providers like EO dashboard, some were examples of updating calendars like WMOlearn calendar and Gulich academic calendar. Others were used as sources of our repositories and tutorials like CSA GitHub with EO scripts and tutorials.

Hackathon Journey

Our journey this year was unlike any other year, we tried to go above and beyond with our solution. We chose this challenge because it, while seemingly simple, is a multi-disciplinary that requires a lot of coordination and a customer-oriented thinking process. Our approach was prioritization and incorporating multiple solutions. We took inspiration from this year's theme, making space for all. We wanted to take everyone in consideration, professionals and beginners, able and differently-abled people, those looking to develop academically and those looking to improve their industry-specific knowledge. One of our major challenges was the scarcity of time, we had to think long and hard about which features were more important, which ones we could get around to save time, which ones required more effort. We resolved those issues by looking at the project from a user's perspective, as well as diversifying the resources we collected our data from, to make sure we have a sample of knowledge on all aspects of Earth Observations despite the time constraints. As a team member writing this documentation of our experience, I'd like to thank all my team members for doing their absolute best and for pushing through the challenge, we'd also, collectively this time, like to thank NASA spaceapps challenge for bringing us together over amazing challenges every year and giving us a chance to give our best.

References

All our courses listed on the website belong to their respective owners, those owners are listed as learning providers on the website, here are all the websites we used: