MCMI Widgets
As part of the Mpumalanga Civic Media Initiative (MCMI), funders Code for Africa and GIZ South Africa requested Open Data Durban to develop websites for the participating newsrooms. Also requested was that these websites have data tools widgets embedded in them. A widget is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information or provides a specific way for a user to interact with the operating system or an application. In simpler terms, a widget can be considered as a “mini application”.
The widgets created for MCMI by Open Data Durban are: Find Your Ward Councillor, Wazimap Ward Data, Municipal Money Data, Find Your Nearest Hospital / Clinic in Mpumalanga, Find Medicine Prices and Find a Doctor. Code for Africa also helped in creating the widgets Property Values and Tender Blacklist. Most of these widgets were created using an API to obtain the data. “In technical terms an API which stands for Application Programming Interface. It allows an external service to query data held in a database and return results. This removes the need to build such a database yourself”
Find Your Ward Councillor
This widget allows the user to find details of their local ward councillor. The Find Your Ward Councillor data tool was developed by Speak up Mzansi, Peoples Assembly and OpenUp (formerly Code for South Africa). The data for this tool is obtained from the IEC 2016 Municipal Election Results. Open Data Durban used the MapIt API to access the data to create the Find Your Ward Councillor widget.
Wazimap Ward Data
Wazimap Ward Data provides the user with census data for any ward in South Africa. Wazimap is a data tool created by Code for South Africa and Media Monitoring Africa. The data is obtained from Census 2011 and IEC election results. Once again ODD used the Wazimap API to create the Wazimap Ward Data widget.
Municipal Money Data
Municipal Money Data provides the user with financial data for any particular municipality. Municipal Money was created by the National Treasury and Code for South Africa. The National Treasury has an open API which has been used to create the Municipal Money Data widget.
Find Your Nearest Hospital / Clinic in Mpumalanga
This widget was designed to locate health facilities in Mpumalanga. The data was obtained from the Department of Health. The user simply enters in an address or use your location and then select search. A list of results are provided with the nearest health facilities and contact details.
Find Medicine Prices
Find Medicine Prices widget is created by Open Data Durban based on the data tool Medicine Price Registry developed by Code for South Africa. The user can search for a medicine or ingredient and find the expected price to pay for the medication. The user can also compare medication to find cheaper alternatives.
Find a Doctor
The Find a Doctor widget directs the user to Health Professionals Council of South Africa iregister. Here the user can search to determine whether or not their health care professional is legally registered or not.
Property Values
The Property Values widget is created by the Code for Africa team. This widget allows the user to find out the market values of properties, the owner, size and Erf Number. The data is derived from Mbombela municipality.
Tender Blacklist
The Tender Blacklist widget is also created by the Code for Africa team. Tender Blacklist allows the user to search for companies/people blacklisted by the National Treasury.
Each of these widgets can be embedded on a website or blog post. ODD is currently creating a Multi-App website. This Multi-App site will contain all the widgets mentioned above and widgets created in the future. Developers, journalists or bloggers can then access this website and have access to the variety of widgets available and then by simply copying the embed code, they can paste this code and have the widget on their website or blog.
- Tricia
Tricia is an OpenGov Fellow with Open Data Durban and she loves to bake.
Originally published at Open Data Durban.
