Online documentation database with advanced research

https://mouka.ht/

Launched in 2023, MOUKA is a documentation database on gender studies and on the rights of Haitian women. This new online platform offers, in addition to original feature pieces, a search engine with several hundred references including books, magazine articles, book chapters, newspaper articles, master's theses, doctoral dissertations, reports, audio files, podcasts, videos and films. The majority of documents are in French, while others are in Haitian Creole, English or Spanish.

The mission of this free virtual directory is to support academic research and, at the same time, encourage intervention and advocacy. At a time when Haitian women are hit especially hard by the various crises shaking the country, it is more urgent than ever to bring together information concerning them in order to bring a better understanding of their living circumstances, while facilitating the sharing and archiving of publications.

The organisation's needs:

• Translate a database of bibliographical references (built using open-source software Zotero) into a website with a high-performance and versatile search engine.
• Plan for additional sections to display feature pieces and reference pages.
• Select a content management system (CMS) appropriate for the project's priorities.
• Prepare a web design from the visual identity provided (logo, colour scheme, fonts).
• Empower the team to manage the website content autonomously.

Our proposal:

• Create a website using Drupal as the content management system and set up the data structure for articles in the documentation database, feature pieces and other pages.
• Use the 'Feeds' modules from Drupal to import data from export files generated in Zotero.
• Create custom scripts to fetch into Drupal files (including PDF documents, images and audio recordings) from the Zotero database.
• Set up an advanced search engine using SolR to index content (including the content of PDF files with character recognition enabled) as well as tools allowing users to combine keyword searches with special operators ("AND", "OR", "NOT").
• Create a custom Drupal theme to integrate the visual identity provided for the website (logo, colours, fonts).
• Prepare documentation and run a training workshop to empower the team to manage their website content autonomously.