Enso

Project Enso is currently being developed at the Indiana University Network Science Institute. It's purpose is to provide researchers with a tool that can easily and quickly capture social network data in the field.

Enso is a spiritual successor to Jesse Fagan's and Kate Eddens' Open Eddi and is being developed by IUNI's small IT team in close collaboration with Kate. The primary difference between Enso and other survey taking software is two fold. Its focus is 1) on collecting network data, such as relatives to the interviewee and ties between the alters and 2) to make this collection easy, simple, and fun for respondents using gamification and interactive questions.

Development

As a developer, my role in the project has primarily been architecture, design, and front-end programming. We initially used Quasar, which combines Vue.js and Cordova for the interface, focusing first on a web-based interface, and later, on a natively compiled mobile app. Quasar eventually changed the API, so we converted Enso to a straight Vue app and a separate Cordova implementation. The backend primarily uses Python 3 and PostgreSQL.

Upon becoming IT Directory at IUNI, I continued to make key design decisions, but rely on my team to do the development work. As a project manager, I develop timelines, allocate resources, and create budgets to ensure that the project continues to meet deadlines and expectations. Because I architected the initial system, I also coach and assist my team in debugging.