Thank you for your interest in the project. We believe that these projects can have real on-the-ground impacts to the thousands of people that call Ontario's Far North home. Before you start you'll need to set up a free GitHub account and sign in. Here are some instructions. Once you are ready to contribute remember to follow the CODE OF CONDUCT which ensures an open and inclusive environment for this buregoning community. We will be updating the README file and this page as the project moves forward.
Our first priority is to develop a mobile application of the Guide to the Guide to Eating Ontario Fish. Currently the data are availible only in a printed book format in a series of tables or a web map interface. The goal is to take the CSV file in this reposistory and build a mobile web app that can display the number of fish that are safe to consume. The user would input 1. The name of the lake they are fishing in OR use the phone's GPS to detect the closest entry in the CSV (which has lat and long for each lake entry). 2. Enter the species they are intersted from a drop down menu 3. Select if they are a member of the General population or Sensitive popultion (women of childbearing age and children under 15). After these fields are filled in the app would simply display the number of fish that are safe to consume.
We are looking for app developers to convert the CSV file into a mobile web interface. We would also like some designers to contribute to the interface or design some fish that can be used in the app to display the results of the query.
Ecological data for the Far North of Ontario is strewn about in many litteral and figuratively closed repositories. As part of Open the North we are soliciting data from the Far North which we could host in the open repository we are building.
Ecolological data or sources of data.
Much like a message board the Issues tab in GitHub allows members of the Open the North commmunity to communicate. The message board is subdivided by labels which give you information about topic. You can find all currently open conversations under the issues tab. We'll add labels to the issues at the project grows.
Once you have determined where you would like to contribute you can follow these steps:
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First, describe what you're planning to do as a new issue. This will help keep everyone on the team in the loop to what you are doing and prevent overlap.
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Fork the Open the North repository to your profile.
This is now your copy of the project. You won't mess up anyone else's work so you're super safe.
Make sure to keep your fork up to date with the master repository. HT to Kirstie Whitaker for the info!
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Make the changes you've discussed.
Try to keep the changes focused rather than changing lots of things at once. If you feel like you wanted to add other functionality: create separate branches for different updates to make the next step much easier!
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Submit a pull request.
The Open the North executive team will review your changes and if everything is up to board merge them in!
In addition to many thank yous and virtual high fives we will be recognizing contributions by adding your name (or your nom de plume) to the app!
You can always open up an issue and the Open the North exexcutive team will answer it in a jiffy, if however you want to have a private conversation you can always email Monica at monica.granados AT alumni.utoronto.ca.