January 2010 update:

In response to the Haitian earthquake, our partner Hesperian has sent around the following health-related information that could be of use to people on the ground.

• The pdf of the Haitian Creole edition of //Where There is No Doctor//, also available as a printed book through : 4 The World Resource Distributors orders@4wrd.org
• Pdf of the Haitian Creole edition of //Where Women Have No Doctor//.
• Pdf of the Haitian Creole edition of Sanitation and Cleanliness booklet, produced by SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods)
• CHOLERA PREVENTION FACTSHEET, in English

Hesperian recommends these organizations which have redoubled their work in Haiti to address this most recent catastrophe:

• Haiti Action Network's Haiti Emergency Relief Fund
• Partners in Health
• Grassroots International, Earthquake Relief Fund for Haiti

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UnaMesa Newsletter December 2009

UnaMesa works with educators, caregivers, and other social service providers to develop and deliver free software tools and create a "common denominator" for social services:

• low-cost connections between providers and clients,
• data gathering across different mediums, and
• access to quality information within a community.

Summary

In the past 3 months our efforts have focused on two projects:

• developing a digital version of "Where There Is No Doctor" to serve as an essential guide for community health care workers
• and updating the Student Notebook to support interactive education.

We also improved our internal, technical support processes that serve the communities which develop tools such as TiddlyWiki and SharedRecords, which address the needs for low-cost, grassroots oriented information technology.

Hesperian project

The Hesperian Foundation - publisher of Where There is No Doctor (WTND) and other community oriented health-care books - sees tremendous opportunity to improve well-being around the world by providing accessible, reliable, and relevant information to health care workers and individuals through mobile phones and other digital channels. However, delivering high quality information through low cost mobile phones represents a tremendous challenge. Following are just a few of the barriers:

• Many low-end phones cannot display images, yet the success of Hesperian's books depends in part on the widespread use of images and diagrams in order to communicate effectively - especially given the low levels of literacy in the target populations.
• Most Hesperian books are 300+ pages long and take a very long time to download over slow connections. How can these texts be broken up into smaller pieces but still contain all the critical information for properly diagnosing and treating symptoms that may have many causes?
• Many Hesperian materials are adapted by local community members with translations and additions of local information that meet the needs of specific communities. How can digital tools support localization while still maintaining the original quality and integrity of the information?

To address these challenges, UnaMesa has been helping Hesperian design and implement a strategy that includes two primary components:

• An online repository of "official" Hesperian material that is fully searchable and can be accessed on a page by page basis. These materials are updated regularly and can be converted by digital distribution partners for delivery via mobile phones.
• A "Hesperian Digital Commons" for Hesperian partners, which contains the latest digital drafts and contributions of others, including translations, localized versions, commentary, job aids, etc. This Commons uses the same technology as Wikipedia, whereby a space is created where anyone interested in community health can make a contribution. The material submitted to the Commons will serve as the basis for regular updates to the official Hesperian publications above.

In addition to these services, UnaMesa is helping Hesperian identify digital revenue models consistent with their mission to serve community-based healthcare information needs. We are also helping to develop and implement the data necessary to monitor usage of Hesperian materials and drive ongoing content development.

The details of this strategy have been mapped out, in conjunction with Hesperian, over the past three months. During the first half of 2010 we'll be deploying initial versions of both the "official" repository and the Hesperian Digital Commons. We will also be supporting pilot projects with Hesperian partners in order to gather data from field workers on how these materials will work best in their day to day tasks. For more information on the this project, see Hesperian Digital Commons .

Student Notebook

Education oriented web sites provide great resources for students and teachers. However, the information relevant to a course may be scattered over many different websites which requires students to learn a new interface for each site. Also, these sites do not allow instructors to modify the information or build an integrated view of the course material, and require continuous connectivity which represents a real barrier for many students, especially those in underserved communities.

The Student Notebook project addresses these concerns by providing each student with their own "copy" of all the course material, including tools for communicating with the instructor and other students, taking notes on the course materials, and completing course projects. Each student's personal copy exists in a single html file that can be used by the student even when offline. Based on TiddlyWiki, the Student Notebook creates a student-centered learning tool that the student can own and customize to their needs rather than the "site oriented" learning tools that are in common usage today.

Over the past three months, UnaMesa has supported a small number of classes at Queen's University in a pilot where students are using the notebook as a primary resource. We plan to use the results of this pilot to design a set of standards, best practices, and high quality examples of using digital tools that support learning experiences.

Project updates

Additional updates for each of our active projects:

• Health-worker field notebook -- Several doctors with MSF have been trialing this notebook in the field. First reports from doctors returning from the field indicate a range of unanticipated uses. We'll be compiling those interviews into a full report next year.
• TiddlyWiki and TiddlyHub -- Over the last year, we continued to support and expand the first fully functional plugin repository for TiddlyWiki. The repository contains hundreds of plugins and gets several hundred hits a day.
• System administration -- We implemented new support procedures in response to an incident that brought down the code repository and bug tracker for the TiddlyWiki community. We have expanded our storage and computing capability, beefed up backup procedures and provide automatic realtime monitoring of the systems along with weekly manual inspections. The result is a more stable and reliable computing infrastructure for supporting UnaMesa services and the community development projects.

See UnaMesa Newsletters for previous updates.