Taxonomy Update: Event

One of the main things that we want to track here are ongoing events affecting Ohio. One might say it's the main reason for this site, if not for EMCOMM itself.

It the beginning it will focus on major events since we don't have that many reporters. As membership grows and contributions come in, we'll be able to track and coordinate more.

With this simple taxonomy expansion we're only adding a new article type. There will also be a new content type called Event that will serve as a hub for details surrounding an event. This might be a little confusing but let me explain.

An event has a beginning and an ending and a location. It has phases and status, and this status will change over time. For example an event may go through the following phases:

• Watch/Warning/Potential
• Confirmed/Ongoing
• Expired/Resolved

Consider the example event that I'm adding to track the potential flooding in Northwest Ohio. Currently it's in the potential stage since it's currently only a flood warning. Should the warning expire without an event it will enter the expired/resolved phase. However if flooding did occur it would enter a confirmed/ongoing phase and we would want to put additional work and product around the event. Say to identify what groups are responding and what assistance they may need from unaffected areas.

By creating a new content type, we can restrict it differently. Initially we can restrict access to event details to authorized users only. Anyone would be able to read the article about the Flooding, but only internal users could see details about who was responding and what the needs were. This should foster more sharing of details by removing the risk of things getting out in the press.

As a new content type we can add additional fields to the object. The current phase (and a history of when it entered new phases,) the location, the type of event (fire, flood, etc.,) possibly a flag to show if it's a drill or not. We'd like to encourage participating groups to use these resources for planning and executing their drills and training exercises.

By organizing events as their own content type and expanding it with additional fields allows us to create views and reports, or a dashboard of ongoing events, or a history of certain event types in Ohio. This is all better explained through a demonstration. I'll set that up shortly.