The platform developed by .msg Romania for Babeș-Bolyai University (BBU), citizenscience.openscience.ubbcluj.ro, is shifting perceptions and bringing together researchers and passionate people willing to sustain them.
When you are devoted to the community you work for and live in everyday, involvement in projects which might bring change forth happens naturally. The partnership between .msg Romania and the universities of Cluj is an already established tradition, “Citizen Science” being the most recent project through which we aim to support academia.
“The .msg Romania team has always focused on projects which have a significant impact on the community. We strongly believe the involvement of each of us contributes to developing a stronger and more interlaced local environment. These convictions have led us to support this idea by making use of our vast expertise in creating Cloud solutions, therefore bolstering our commitment to research and the local community.”, as explained by Horea Rațiu, Managing Director.
What is Citizen Science?
The platform hosts BBU’s ongoing research projects that locals may become involved with by supporting their development. Any citizen concerned by one of the research themes proposed may allocated their time for contributions. Be it gathering data on bird migration or testing therapeutic games, people may act as volunteers in these projects and informally become part of the research team.
The collaboration between .msg Romania and BBU on this matter has begun in September of 2023, when the task for the company had also been established: 3 months for developing the initial version of the platform.
Feasible solutions and an altogether different experience
A simple, scalable, Azure-using architecture has been opted for by the team. Terraform has been employed for replicating the architecture on all environments and also for expanding the team’s knowledge in this direction. Concerning the technologies used in development for the backend and frontend, Spring and Angular were chosen as the team possesses strong knowledge of them. Both the backend and frontend are served through Azure Container Instances and the Azure Static website. Managing sensitive data is done through Azure Keyvault, while user authentication is performed through B2C and MSAL.
Initially, four developers, a UX designer and a Product Owner were part of the .msg Romania team handling #citizenscience. “The pressure to deliver the platform in such a short amount of time, employing a tech stack largely unknown to the team, especially infrastructure-wise, has not left room for mistakes.”, states Roxana Armășescu. “We have focused on delivering functionality and quickly found viable solutions, even though we did not have the desired amount of time for research and optimisations.”
“We have considered every challenge to be a learning opportunity and a chance to step out of our comfort zone. From implementing on an infrastructure vastly different from what we are accustomed to, to working in a team with different rules and procedures, we had to adapt at every step to ensure that we not only deliver a functional and secure platform but also one that provides the best possible experience for users.”, adds Roxana.
A project that has the capacity to change a community
On the 29th of November, 2023, the first research projects could already be uploaded. In parallel, platform development had been going on, with both adding new functionality and refining existing ones. Presently, .msg Romania continues to be involved in the project for adding in new functionality that will improve both the citizens’ and the researchers’ experience.
A number of 40 researchers have already registered their projects and 46 citizens enrolled on the website. As good ideas may come from anywhere, the research team is working on an option to allow other persons as well to submit project proposals.