Social Innovations Database (BDIS)

https://bdis.uqam.ca/

The Center for Research on Social Innovations (Centre de recherche sur les innovations sociales - CRISES) is an interuniversity and multidisciplinary research centre. Since 2012, CRISES has been developing its Social Innovations Database (Base de données sur les innovations sociales - BDIS). As of January 1, 2021, the database gathers more than 150 case studies conducted by, or under the supervision of, CRISES faculty members on a wide variety of SI-related topics. The BDIS website is based on the tree structure of key concepts and definitions found in its database.

The organisation's needs:

• Starting from the publication created by the CRISES, implement a website that allows researchers the possibility to explore the Social Innovations tree structure of key concepts and definitions
• Analyze and convert the publication into a database-friendly format
• Setup search tools and content relationships to facilitate the browsing of definitions

Our proposal:

• Create custom scripts to convert the original document in a CSV spreadsheet that can then be imported into a database
• Using the Drupal content management system, setup a database structure customized to the content produced by CRISES: entities, attributes, categories, subcategories, and sub-subcategories
• Use Drupal's built-in systems (taxonomy system, related content, search tools) to improve site navigation
• Custom visual integration implementing colour-coded categories and using the style guide from the main CRISES website