A call with Dr.Gloria and the Web squad was held to get advice on planing the IRC.
Recorded video:
Two major points were discussed,
- Developing IRC as a standalone platform.
- Creating a mind map, highlighting all the requirements of the platform.
4 Likes
Hi all,
Over the past standups, @EngTeam decided to have a separate project for IRC. If weāve done it within the SEF-Site there would be problems when expanding the application features. To avoid this we thought to create a project for IRC from the scratch.
Last week we had a call with Dr.Gloria and discussed the implementation and how it should be done. She suggested to come up with a mindmap to list down all the prerequisites. Therefore I created the below mindmap.
After showing this to Dr.Gloria, she improved it further and now weāve finalized the below mindmap.
Feel free to add your thoughts and suggestions 
2 Likes
Well done @Gimhan_minion . I like that you and Dr. Gloria had added filtering criteria in the map, will become handy when going to the development.
Since all the necessary tools are in place shall we go into the last step of design. Two more things needs to be done.
- Finalise all the suggested wireframes.
[Linking all sugessted wireframes]
https://sef.discourse.group/t/updating-the-irc-researchers-view/275/9?u=yohanavishke
https://sef.discourse.group/t/updating-the-irc-researchers-view/275/11?u=yohanavishke
- Design the ERD diagram for the database.
It should be a very simple database with minimal relationships. - Init a GitHub repo.
-
Strapi
We were discussing to use Strapi as our backend content management system. We can have our Database and API(optional) in Strapi and mange them through the admin panel. To do so we need to do,- Quick research on pros and cons of the tool for the IRC platform.
- Needs to be deployed in a Heroku or Digital ocean instance.
@Gimhan_minion please divide your team among the above tasks.
cc: @EngTeam
1 Like
1.2 would be to finalize a mockup
1 Like
So as we discussed in the previous standup, Shouldnāt we wait for a finalized design system before creating the mockups? 
@jaye @YohanAvishke
We can start working on a MVP until that. Final MVP should have,
- CSS elements with minimal design just to cover the functionality.
- Fully completed backend and database.
After the design system is finalised we only need to add the necessary CSS classes to the existing elements.
1 Like
I donāt think still itās the right time to jump into the development.
Mockups would help us to understand and validate the requirements with our stakeholders (IRC team, Akshika, Minuri, Gloria, etc.)
For the database, we donāt actually need to think about a database if we use strapi. identifying entities and relationships between them would be sufficient. @anjisvj correct me if Iām wrong.
Yes Gimhan, that would be helpful. Were you able to find good one?
@Gravewalker @Janeth_Fernando
3 Likes
I have this doubt again. I think I didnāt clearly ask this in the advisory call. We are going to show the publications of researchers. But are we going to show all publications of the researchers or the only publications that researchers shared with us.
Because usually most researchers share their Researchgate or Google scholar or other accounts links to share their publications but some researchers only shared selected publications with us. So, If we are going to share all publications we need their approval isnāt it? I donāt know for sure. Do we want to get their approval?
@akshika47 @Minuri_Adasuriya @jaye @Gimhan_minion
@Rano the way I see it, if they have shared their research with us already and it has been published in the Medium blogs we should be fine to have it on our page.
4 Likes
@Gravewalker and I just converted the @Gimhan_minion 's wireframes into mockups.
Resources:
Here are some previews:
4 Likes
@Rano it is fine to show their publications as long as they are public
@jaye this is next level 
any plan on how to get the publication list?
3 Likes
@akshika47 How frequently do we get publications?
will it be hard if we provide IRC admins with a dashboard to insert publications? (strapi does) Thatās the easiest way, btw.
Integrations might be a bit complex, but couldnāt be impossible.
Btw, the google scholar has one. An automated solution might be scraping it daily and updating the DB if there are new changes. Could be challenging, but we can add it to a higher iteration.
Donāt think we need to do it daily. Once a week/month would suffice.
1 Like
Hello there,
Iām working on the IRC researcherās view page improvement requirement gathering.
Here are some resources Iām using for the requirement gathering process.
The skeleton of the SRS document I created. Please be kind enough to leave a comment if there is anything to be updated.
4 Likes
Hi All,
It took much longer to give my updates on the task. However, Iām working on the IRC requirement gathering. And I need some hands with identifying the flow of the current system. Hereby, I will define the steps of the Current System workflow.
- Researchers will discover the website for the IRC in SEF.
- They will fill the form by clicking signup or sending an email to apply.
- Admins will check those submissions manually and ā¦
- ā¦
I just need to get clear whether the steps are correct or wrong, also what are the steps I have missed. @Minuri_Adasuriya @Rano
Also, I will share the SRS document with the newly updated contents.
Thank you.
2 Likes
Thank you for the update. Those steps are correct. In addition, we usually contact researchers via their Linkedin account or email. Iāll send you a document that explains how IRC operates.
In the document, I mentioned the fundamental operations. I didnāt mention some of the minor internal processes. Please let me know if you need any help. Thank you.
1 Like
Hi all,
When Iām working on identifying the limitations of the current system I just figure out there are two major system limitations with the current IRC application.
- The current IRC page lacks information about researchers.
- Get only a small amount of researchers through the sign-up form and approaching emails from researchers.
These are the two major limitations I documented with the Ranojaanās inputs (link) and also from the former discussions. Also, the thread was created by @jaye to bring out the discussion to update the IRC page with more information about researchers. Iām focusing on these points while preparing the SRS.
I just pointed out these to get ensure that Iām on the correct path with identifying the actual requirements. Cause Iām in a little blocker with what we are going to do in the new IRC system.
Correct me if Iām wrong with the path focusing on. And also let me know If there are any major points that we need to focus on with the upcoming implementations of the IRC application.
Thank you.
1 Like