Martijn van de Rijdt TSC Application - 2018-07-16

Name
Martijn van de Rijdt (@martijnr)

Organization
Enketo LLC

What contributions (e.g., issue triage, tech support, documentation, bug fixes) have you made to the ODK community?
I am working on the Enketo Project. The Enketo (Express/Validate) application plugs into ODK tools and can be used for data collection and more. I have contributed to discussions about new features, XForms documentation, and XLSForms documentation.

How do you believe your contributions have benefited ODK?
I think the ecosystem benefits from having multiple tool options available. Enketo has provided alternatives for ODK Collect and ODK Validate. Having options makes an ecosystem more attractive for people looking to create a custom Information Management system. They can pick and chose tools that most closely match their requirements. Moreover, with Enketo ODK has become suitable for a larger user base (e.g. those wanting to collect data with iOS devices, laptops, or an online/email campaign). It has also provided unique features that were previously not available (form previews, form pdfs).

I think that my work on the ODK XForms specification has been useful because that specification is really the core of the ODK ecosystem. Managing this specification carefully will have a positive impact on the long-term health of the ecosystem. It is very tempting to quickly hack something together (syntax-wise), and we need people (like myself) that say 'Hold on! Let's figure out how to do this properly so it won't bite us later'. It's very hard and costly to undo bad decisions.

What do you believe the top priorities for ODK are?
Finalizing the governance transition. Guarding against feature bloat. Sorting out a sustainable way of ensuring continuing development (funding/contribution) of ODK tools. Letting ODK Central become a great modern sleek small ODK server solution that can be easily installed and updated. Helping to get some important ecosystem tools, such as Enketo, become equally well-governed multi-stakeholder projects.

How will you help the ODK community accomplish those priorities?
By providing my inputs during discussions, and contributing directly towards some of these.

How many hours a week can you commit to participating on the TSC?
1-2

What other mobile data collection projects, social good projects, or open source projects are you involved with?
It's all within the ODK Ecosystem for me and has been since around 2012, when I discovered ODK.

Please share any links to public resources (e.g., resume, blog, Github) that help support your application.

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I am in very strong agreement with this. @martijnr, what do you see as the TSC's role when it comes to these specs? What actions do you imagine you might be able to take as a TSC member to strengthen community capacity to think critically about and evolve the specs?

This is an important point that doesn't often make it onto priority lists. How do you see the TSC incorporating this priority in its day-to-day activity?

Somewhat relatedly, as a TSC member, how would you imagine engaging in conversations about ODK tools that you are less directly involved with? In particular, Collect currently tends to be the most discussed tool.

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Thanks for your questions @LN!

what do you see as the TSC's role when it comes to these specs?

I think, if necessary, the TSC can take an active role in moving forward a proposal for an XForms specification change, especially if such a proposal is stuck in the community due to lack of feedback or disagreements.

What actions do you imagine you might be able to take as a TSC member to strengthen community capacity to think critically about and evolve the specs?

A nice way of doing this, I think, is to ask for ideas on specification proposals as part of discussions on new features. Asking that question may encourage people to look closely at the form format.

How do you see the TSC incorporating this priority in its day-to-day activity?

I think it starts by becoming (or remaining) aware of the danger of creating a bloated monster. That leads to a critical review of proposals, perhaps choosing to make tools extensible instead, and also to take tough decisions on removing/changing existing features that are no longer considered to be technically sound.

Somewhat relatedly, as a TSC member, how would you imagine engaging in conversations about ODK tools that you are less directly involved with?

I imagine there are many conversations I will have little to contribute to (and that's fine with me :slight_smile: ) and others that I will have more to contribute to. There is a strong correlation between ODK Collect and Enketo, as we'd like for users to be able to painlessly switch between those clients using the same forms. That is mostly at the form-feature level and not so much the implementation details or app-specific features. However, even for the latter there are probably experiences we can share that will be useful.

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