Category Archives: Public Works

Using Social Media to Curate Information for Feasibility Studies

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While I still enjoy books and love going to the library, I have come to favor using the Internet when researching a specific subject. Not only is it easy to find and collect and organize information, but the social media side of it allows me to also get the pulse of the public on that topic. And by using specific tools available online for curating information, it's easy to pull it all together for easy access and reference. I haven't really heard of any firms or agencies using this approach to develop feasibility studies, although I would think some out there are following this process. So I thought I'd lay out below the steps that could be taken to set this up for a specific study in case someone was not doing this and wanted to try it out. Because lately I've been focused on bike planning, design, and management, I will use that topic in my examples:

Collect Your Information

Set up a Twitter Feed

One of the first steps I take to collect information on a specific topic is to set up a Twitter Feed. You can see I added one on bikes to the right sidebar of this blog. Even though not every Tweet out there in the Twitterverse will be what I want, the format allows me to easily scan for what I do need. If you don't initially have a place to embed a widget like you see in the sidebar on this page, you can just visit the Twitter site and type #bikes in the search window at the top of the page. Here is the link to a search for the #bikes hashtag on Twitter.

Google Drive

Once you start getting information, you'll want a place to store links and ideas you have found. There are several tools out there to help you with this task. You might want to try a couple at first as a test until you settle on which one works best for you. One of the easiest is to just set up a Google document on Google Drive. Anyone with a Google account can access Google Drive by signing into their account and clicking the word "Drive" at the top of the screen. Once there, you can click the "create" button and choose what type of document you would like to use to store your information. I chose a "Document" which on Google is like a word processing page. The benefit of using Google Drive is it also lets you embed your documents on other sites. And you can share your document with others so everyone can work on it together. Here is what I have so far in my document about bicycle resources:

Shelfari

Shelfari is a site where you can collect books related to your topic into a digital bookshelf. Here is one I set up with a few books related to bicyle infrastructure:

Livebinders

Livebinders is another popular site for collecting and organizing links related to a specific topic. I created one to collect links to sites with information about bicycle infrastructure. You can access it by clicking the icon below:

MindMaps

Mind Maps are useful to display related information in a visual manner. There are several different Mind Map tools out there. For this example I used the free version of Bubbl.us. The beginning of a Bicycle Infrastructure MindMap is below:

Display Your Collections on a Website

You can also use a free website creation tool to set up your own site for collecting and displaying information about your topic. The benefit of actually setting up a site rather than just collecting links in a document or specific tool is that you can embed all tools used in one place. One example of a free website creation tool is Wix. I did not set up a site as an example because this blog serves this purpose for me. This option is best if you could not display everything you found in one of the tools above and you wanted to use different tools for different types of links and resources.

Analyze and discuss your information

Once you have collected and organized your research you can begin analyzing it and discussing it with others. If you are working as part of a team, having everything linked allows for easy access and sharing between members of the group. Social media tools can also support this part of the process.

The articles and comments on blogs are particularly useful for analyzing public opinion, experiences, and feedback. For example, if you follow the link to the article on the Seattle Bike Blog, you'll find a wealth of feedback related to protected bike lanes. In the original article, there is information shared from a traffic engineer. Then in the comments, bikers share their knowledge, experience, and information about the use of a specific type of protection for bike lanes. It would be difficult to get this amount of feedback at this level from any other source. Someone studying this type of bike lane protection could document the number of people commenting who had accidents because of this specific element. Ideas for improving on the design of this type of practice can also be found on the site.

 

 

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Edmonton Presents Complete Streets Guidelines

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Edmonton will be presenting their Complete Streets Design Guidelines to their council on May 13, 2013. In addition to the Complete Streets document, Edmonton is also introducing the final draft of their Designing New Neighborhoods Guidelines. Both policies complement and support each other.

Major cities like Edmonton have developed guidelines like these to help develop roadways and transportation corridors to better serve users of all modes of travel. Sites like Complete Streets for Canada and National Complete Streets Coalition provide resources for agencies interested in developing and implementing their own Complete Streets policies and guidelines. The map below from the National Complete Streets Coalition illustrates how many cities in the United States have adopted some level of Complete Streets initiative.

A map of cities in Canada with Complete Streets initiatives can be found on the Complete Streets Canada website. And for an example of complete streets guidelines for a city outside of North America, check out the Abu Dhabi Urban Street Design Manual

 

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Try Out Our Stormwater Beta Class!

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Rain Icon - Source: http://iconka.com)If you ask public works professionals what are the most common concerns or issues they handle in their community, you will probably hear stormwater or flooding mentioned. So when we thought about developing online courses related to public works, we decided to begin by creating one about this topic. The entire course is still in development, but we have several sessions completed. And now with the software we are using ready for a public release this summer, we believe we are ready to invite a group of beta testers in to try it out. There are no costs associated with taking any of the courses so if you think you might be interested in testing out this class, read on . . .

One of the exciting aspects of this course is the software which allows for quite a different experience than what is usually offered by more traditional online educational delivery systems. All courses are created in and managed through 3D GameLab – a quest-based learning platform (a screenshot of the interface is included later in this post). When you join the class you are entered into a group with other students of that course. Everyone's progress is tracked in the group tab of the class. As you proceed through each session, or quest, you gain points, and as you complete a series of tasks, rewards are earned to track your progress. Each session leading up to a reward builds on the material in the last one. 

So far, the classes we have ready in the Stormwater Course are shown below. And because stormwater and flooding are ongoing concerns for many, we expect to continue adding quest groups to the course over time.

Introductory Quest Group – at completion the student achieves the "Climateer" Level and badge

  • Welcome to Exploring DrainageClimateer Badge
  • When it Rains, It Pours
  • Take the Damage Tour
  • The Flood Lineup
  • The Role of Government

Government Liaison Quest Group – at completion the student achieves the title of Government Liaison and earns a badge

  • Government Liaison BadgeFlood Zones
  • Flood Maps
  • Flood Insurance
  • Designing for the Storm

Castle Steward Quest Group – at completion the student achieves the Castle Steward level and earns the related badge

This group is still in development with the grayed-out quests not yet ready:

  • The Lay of the LandCastle Steward Badge
  • Pump that Sump
  • Never Saw that Coming
  • The 500 Year Storm
  • Preparing for the Flood

So who should take this type of course? It is designed to offer information in a format that would be interesting and relevant to property owners, people interested in stormwater, and even engineers and others working in public works who are just getting started in working with stormwater. At this time the signup process will ask you to verify you are 18 years or older. We can accommodate people younger including classes of high school students; however, we would want to discuss the access process before setting up accounts to ensure we comply with FERPA and COPPA. 

Stormwater Class Screenshot

If you sign up to try it out, we would appreciate any feedback you have including ideas about how we can make the course better or ideas for other courses you would like to have us develop. At this time the class is limited to 60 people so if you are interested, make sure you sign up now with the form below to secure your spot!

 

Note: Thanks to http://iconka.com for the first image in this post

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Infographic of the Month – May 2013

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Yesterday a colleague at work and I were discussing the feasibility of creating infographics to use as exhibits at public meetings for projects. We didn't necessarily think they should be used in place of what is already done, but instead used to enhance understanding of the project. But we could not think of any examples where we had seen public agencies using infographics in this manner. I'm going to reach out to a few people I know in the industry to see if they are aware of anyone using infographics at public meetings for projects, and if any of you out there are familiar with an example, we'd love to hear about it.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share an infographic with you that I received in the email yesterday from EDR. It focuses on the topic of vapor intrusion. You can find out more about that topic on the EPA Vapor Intrusion page. And if you want to embed this infographic on your own page to help educate citizens in your own community you can grab the embed code on the Vapor Intrusion Infographic page.

What Homeowners Need to Know About Vapor Intrusion – An infographic by the team at EDR

 

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Making Adult Education Attractive

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As adults we have so many things competing for our time – kids, work or school, significant others, hobbies, extended families, and friends. So even though there's an enormous amount of online learning material and educational opportunities the challenge is finding the time in our busy lives to take advantage of it all. And even if we make a decision to take a class, we might not maintain that commitment if the class does not meet our level of expectations. In order to keep us interested and carry us to a successful completion, a class needs to grab and maintain our attention, add value and meaning to our lives, and leave us with a sense of accomplishment.

Therfore, those who prepare classes for professionals in public works, engineering, or government need to:

Create classes that capture professional interest. Topics should be relevant to work-related challenges and tasks. I'd probably sign up for "Design and Construction of PVC Water Mains," but I am not going to sign up for "Preventing Blood Incompatibility Errors."

Sustain interest by designing class resources and course work to match the skills and learning type and ability level of professionals interested in that topic. A class for engineers about designing and constructing water main might offer a few modules that introduce and explain engineering formulas and theory for strength and hydraulics. The content and work required for this topic would meet the expectations and abilities of engineers. But these modules most likely would not interest a non-engineer who is tasked only with the installation of water main. That type of student probably would not be interested in reading or listening to engineering theory behind water main design and would not want to perform engineering calculations.

Provide a meaningful and personally relevant experience. Someone taking the time to go through a class will want to have a sense of accomplishment or achievement upon its completion. A course that walks an apprentice operator through the function and controls of a backhoe should prepare that person so upon its completion the operator can successfully understand and perform the functions taught in the class. If the class leaves them confused and unable to act upon or understand anything taught, the operator will perceive his time as wasted.

Course Design Requirements

So how can we use this information to improve our learning experiences? When we consider training for ourselves or for our staff, we can check to make sure the classes meet these three requirements. If it is not obvious from the course description, we can also ask past attendees or students if they felt a specific class held and sustained their interest and left them with a sense of accomplishment. And if we are delivering or creating classes in our field, we should be asking ourselves these questions throughout the process. In evaluations we can also ask students questions like: what could be changed to make the class more interesting and relevant? and what other activities or approaches might better hold your interest?

 

 

 

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