Introduction

At the moment, we run all MicroPasts project directly within the site framework. Using the system API, you could build a headless driven application - for example see Libcrowds from the British Library.

Each project is run from HTML/Javascript templates, which interact with data or tasks supplied via the Pybossa framework. These are essentially as simple or as complex as your Javascript skills make them. Follow the KISS paradigm and you won’t go wrong!

Creation of projects

Who can create?

Within the Pybossa framework, anyone can create a project if they are registered with the platform; they can only be made final if the system administrators give approval (Daniel Pett, Chiara Bonacchi, Andy Bevan and Jennifer Wexler.) The owner of the project and system administrators can edit each projects details, or if you want to, you can co-own projects with another user.

By allowing any registered user to create a project, we enable democratic citizen science and provide a platform upon which those without the means to create their own can thrive.

How does one create a project?

Creating project templates and tutorials alongside the final analysis of your data are the hardest parts of running a citizen science project. Each project has a set of template files to run the required activities.

Our preferred methodology for first time creation of a project, is to create your template code and use version control on Github and deploy to the platform via the PBS command line interface. If a project is likely to become a template, the project team will create template snippets in the main theme and it becomes far easier to create and deploy! To learn more about this, read on!