How a University Student Launched, Operated, and Negotiated with the Prefecture for the Yamaguchi COVID-19 Response Site

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Introduction

Hello, I'm nisshi.
I created the Yamaguchi Prefecture version of the COVID-19 response site developed as OSS by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

While it was unofficial at the time of release on March 19, 2020, it became officially recognized by Yamaguchi Prefecture on April 24, 2020.

In this article, I'll share the story behind the development of the Yamaguchi COVID-19 Response Site.

Update: The Yamaguchi Prefecture COVID-19 Response Site ceased operations on March 31, 2023.

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From Decision to Release

I decided to develop this on March 15, started actual development on March 16, and released on March 19—about 4 days in total.
Since I developed it at a relaxed pace, it wasn't particularly fast compared to other prefectural sites. (Some sites were launched within a single day.)

The Decision

On March 15, while browsing Twitter as usual, I came across this tweet:

Learning that "Tokyo developed this as OSS and derivative sites are being created," I looked into other prefectures' derivative sites and discovered that the Mie Prefecture version was developed by technical college (Kosen) students.

Driven by strong feelings of "As a former Kosen student, I can't let this stand", "I want to contribute to an OSS project used by many people", and "I want to participate in a project with skilled developers and grow tremendously", I thought "Let's just do it!!!" and committed to making it happen.

After confirming that no one had created a Yamaguchi Prefecture version yet (as of March 15, 2020), I tweeted my declaration:

I also joined the Code for Japan Slack workspace and announced that I would start developing the Yamaguchi version.

That's how I came to decide to develop this project.

My motto is "Just take action first," and I'm someone with an abundance of challenging spirit, so I started development half on impulse.

March 15, 2020

This day was spent on preparatory work before development, such as creating the Slack workspace.

• Created the Yamaguchi version workspace (nsd) *The Slack workspace is now closed. The migration destination is this Discord server.
• Forked Tokyo's repository to create the Yamaguchi version repository (nsd)

March 16, 2020

This day was spent investigating what discussions were happening in the Tokyo repository and understanding the system architecture.

• Understood the Tokyo repository system architecture (nsd)
• Logo creation (crispytaffy)

March 17, 2020

This day was spent migrating to the Yamaguchi version based on documentation created by Code for Japan.

• Detailed configuration modifications while referencing the derivative version checklist (nsd)
• Data collection and integration for the Yamaguchi version - Part 1 (nsd, crispytaffy)
• Proposal/communication of promotional methods (crispytaffy)
• Contact with Yamaguchi Prefectural Government (link to "Yamaguchi Prefecture Official Website") (crispytaffy)

March 18, 2020

By this day, front-end tasks were mostly complete.

• Data collection and integration for the Yamaguchi version - Part 2 (nsd)
• Data auto-update script creation - Part 1 (dream_exp)
• Facebook page creation (crispytaffy)
• Site testing (atososon)
• Sakura Cloud contract (free provision) (nsd)

• Sakura Cloud environment setup and production server launch - Part 1 (Tomitomi, nsd)

March 19, 2020

Although there were some rushed moments like implementing HTTPS after release, we successfully launched as scheduled.

• Sakura Cloud environment setup and production server launch - Part 2 (Tomitomi, nsd)
• HTTPS implementation with Let's Encrypt (Tomitomi)
• Released

*I couldn't list everyone's names here, but thank you to everyone who cooperated with the production!
*If you'd like to be added to the list, let me know.

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From Full Automation and Open Data to Official Recognition

At the time of the March 19 release, data was being entered and updated completely manually. After release, to reduce operational costs as much as possible, we worked toward full automation of updates. To achieve full automation, we referenced an article by the Nagano version developer and modified the site to read data from external files.

Since it wasn't open data at this point, we had dream_exp create a new web scraping script. However, irregular partial deletions and layout changes occurred on the scraping source site (the Yamaguchi Prefecture official page), requiring corrections each time.

Since web scraping had high operational costs, we decided to negotiate with the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government, the data publisher, for open data. (We had negotiated for open data once immediately after release but were declined, so this time we contacted a different department.)

We contacted the Yamaguchi Prefecture Health and Welfare Department Welfare Policy Division, and on April 16, went to the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government to discuss the details in person. For this negotiation, we used materials from Data Publication Support for COVID-19 Response Sites. As a result of negotiations, open data was published on the Yamaguchi Prefecture Open Data Catalog Site. Additionally, at the prefecture's proposal, official recognition was granted after full automation of updates was achieved.

The open data was provided in CSV format. Since the COVID site was designed to read JSON data, we created a repository to periodically convert CSV data to JSON data.

Through the above process, on April 19, we completed full automation of updates, open data publication, and official prefecture recognition.

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Yamaguchi Prefecture Version: Unique Implementation

We visualized cumulative positive patient data by municipality in map format as follows.

When visualizing this data, we compared and considered three visualization methods.

1. Map Format

The advantage of this method for this data is that the positional relationships of each municipality are clear and easy to understand. For those with knowledge of the positional relationships of municipalities, they can immediately find the data for the city they want to know about.

The disadvantage is that differences in area of each municipality may affect the perception of data. In this case, Yamaguchi City has a relatively large area, while Kudamatsu City has a small area. When viewing the whole, larger municipalities stand out more than smaller ones, so if larger municipalities have many cases, it might lead people to incorrectly believe infections are increasing. Also, if there are too many municipalities, the amount of information that can be viewed at once decreases, which may make it harder to see.

2. Cartogram Format

The advantage of this method is that by making all municipalities the same size, it eliminates the perceptual distortion that occurs when viewing the data as a whole in map format.

The disadvantage is that it becomes harder to find the position of each municipality, making it difficult to quickly locate the data you want.

Reference: https://www.stopcovid19.jp/

3. Circle Display Format

This format represents the number of cases as circle sizes on a map. The advantage is that it maintains the benefits of the map format while overcoming its disadvantages.

On the other hand, the disadvantage is that if municipality data sizes are too small, they might interfere with other municipalities' data.

Reference: https://vdata.nikkei.com/newsgraphics/coronavirus-world-map/

Reason for Adoption

We considered the above three visualization methods for this data. As a result, we adopted map format.

The reason is that since this site is viewed by many people interested in Yamaguchi Prefecture, we thought it would be better to make positional relationships of each municipality easy to understand so data can be found immediately.

Personally, when viewing cartogram maps, I had the experience of "Where is the XX prefecture I want to know about?" and couldn't find the data position immediately, so I decided not to adopt cartogram maps.

For the format of displaying case numbers as circle sizes on maps, since the difference between larger and smaller municipalities was severe, we thought interference with other municipality data would easily occur and decided not to adopt this method either. With map format, since Yamaguchi Prefecture has relatively few municipalities, we thought that even with map format, sufficient information could be provided at once. Finally, we decided to provide visualization data by adding information on each municipality name and number of cases to map format.

We will continue discussing visualization improvements, so if you have suggestions for improvements, please create an issue.

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Media Coverage

We were featured on the front page of Ube Nippo.

March 21, 2020 (Sat) - Ube Nippo

(nsd, Tomitomi, atososon)

March 23, 2020 (Mon) - Yamaguchi University Faculty of Engineering Department of Computer Science News

March 31, 2020 (Tue) - yab Yamaguchi Asahi Broadcasting "J-chan Yamaguchi"

"COVID-19: 'For More Visual Understanding' - Yamaguchi University Students Develop Website"

April 1, 2020 (Wed) - NHK Yamaguchi

• 07:45–08:00 broadcast "Good Morning Yamaguchi"
• 12:15–12:20 broadcast "Yamaguchi Prefecture News"
• 18:10–19:00 broadcast "Information Innovation! Yamaguchi"

"New Coronavirus Infection Status Summary Site Launched by University Student"

April 27, 2020 (Mon) - Ube Nippo

(nsd, Tomitomi, atososon)

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Promotional Materials

Created to improve recognition of the site. Currently posted at Yamaguchi Prefectural Government, Yamaguchi University Faculty of Engineering, etc.

• Triangle pop creation (crispytaffy)
• Poster creation (crispytaffy)

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Sites That Linked to Us (Selected)

• Yamaguchi Prefecture Official Website
• Yamaguchi COVID Info - Yahoo! JAPAN
• Government CIO Portal
• StopCovid19 National Version
• IT Life Hack
• Niconico News
• Mado no Mori (Impress)
• Yamaguchi University Faculty of Engineering Department of Computer Science
• Yamaguchi University Faculty of Engineering
• Yamaguchi Prefecture Infectious Disease Information Center
• Yamaguchi Prefecture Yorozu Support Center
• Hagi City Incubation Center - Yamaguchi University Satellite Lab Hagi
• Yamaguchi Prefecture Open Data Catalog Site
• Yamaguchi Prefecture COVID-19 Response Headquarters Twitter Account

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Conclusion

The successful launch and operation of the Yamaguchi Prefecture COVID-19 Response Site was made possible thanks to those who developed Tokyo's OSS, the people at Code for Japan, Sakura Internet who provided the server free of charge, Yamaguchi Prefectural Government who accepted the open data proposal, and everyone involved in the Yamaguchi Prefecture COVID-19 Response Site.

Through this development and operation, I gained valuable knowledge and was able to identify areas for improvement in my previous "vague development" approach. I plan to continue being involved in various service development in the future, so I want to keep polishing my technical skills.