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| Date: 2025-04-07 Page is: DBtxt001.php txt00000390 | |||||||||
Background to the TVM Initiative |
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Background One of the underlying themes of the Tr-Ac-Net strategy is that good information is the foundation for good decision making. The challenge is to make a lot of information easily accessible in a useful way, and to do it at a minimum and affordable cost. Content is now more of a challenge than technology. The available technology allows for very large quantities of data to be processed and stored for subsequent retrieval. The challenge is for these data to be compiled in an organized way so that subsequent use is easy and cost effective. The architecture of the data so that it is useful for analysis and decision making is an issue that Tr-Ac-Net is working on and seeking to optimise Wiki In November 2003 someone in the Tr-Ac-Net community proposed that the first iteration of data collection could be done using a Wiki, rather than developing a rigid database structure that would be relatively difficult to change. The idea was that 100% of the effort could go into the data compilation and hardly anything would need to be done at the technical level. For more than two years a Wiki ... a Wiki Tikki Tavi ... was used and a lot of information compiled. So much information was put on the record that the system became a constraint and the Wiki was overwhelmed. It became very slow and no longer effective. The Wiki content architecture that evolved ORGANIZATIONS The main focus of the initial Wiki was on organizations. This came about because it is the prevalent mindset in the official relief and development assistance (ORDA) community about structure and the critical entities of the sector. A lot of information about organizations was collected. One unique aspect of this data collection initiative was that any and all organizations may be 'on the record', not just those that pass through some sort of filter or screening process. The screening comes afterwards based on information about the organizations and its performance. PEOPLE People emerged as another important component of the database data. People were a reflection of ideas, activities, organizations and more. Though Tr-Ac-Net had an academic view that 'people' were important, the process of collecting data made this even more apparent. The information compiled about people is rather limited compared to what is possible, and desirable. COMMUNITY Almost no information was collected about community. The Tr-Ac-Net focus on Community Centric Sustainable Development (CCSD) and the lack of easy data to facilitate good decision making with CCSD has been a surprise. It has become apparent that this is one of the biggest weaknesses in the management information dimension of development. ISSUES DIALOG In contrast to hard community information, there is a huge amount of dialog and writing based on rather soft data and the analysis of analysis. Modern ICT up to now has facilitated dialog, but has not yet been used to mobilize hard and reliable data that can be used for decision making. BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS Even though rather little was documented and put on the record in the Wiki, there is a huge amount of written material in books and documents about the relief and development sector. While there is a lot of information in these sources, it is not easy to use the information for decision making and management in the sector. Wiki's Demise in 2007 The Wiki was a very useful interim step and served as a platform where considerable information was able to be archived. But the ease of use also resulted in more and more data that was totally disorganized. There was no structure, and accordingly, no ability to do analysis in an efficient manner. But then the site was hacked and what was becoming difficult to use became impossible. Links were destroyed and pages filled with random garbage. Sad, that this had to happen ... but by then the Wiki had taught us enough to be able to move forward to a relational model of structured data. |
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SITE COUNT< Blog Counters Reset to zero January 20, 2015 | TrueValueMetrics (TVM) is an Open Source / Open Knowledge initiative. It has been funded by family and friends. TVM is a 'big idea' that has the potential to be a game changer. The goal is for it to remain an open access initiative. |
| WE WANT TO MAINTAIN AN OPEN KNOWLEDGE MODEL | A MODEST DONATION WILL HELP MAKE THAT HAPPEN | |
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