Data Quality Index Consultation- sub-section 1.1 Timeliness - Frequency
Instructions for submitting your feedback
1. Read through the proposed methodology for this measure and / or download the attached PDF at the bottom of this page;
2. Share your feedback through the comment box below, consider the guiding questions in your comments and include the question number in your response;
3. And finally you can suggest track-changes or add comments directly on the specifics of the methodology of the Timeliness and Validation - go to this DQI Live-Editing-Page
Proposed Measures - 1.1 Timeliness - FREQUENCY
Please find below the proposed methodology for this measure. Only active activities* will be assessed in the Timeliness measures.
*Active activities refer to activities which have an actual-start-date in the past, and no actual-end date or a planned-end-date in the future. If actual start dates are not present, the planned start date will be used
DEFINITION assess how often a publisher's data is updated, using transaction-date elements.
OBJECTIVE / EXPLANATION
- Data quality objective: frequent and predictable updates.
- Based on the methodology, this measures whether a publisher has updated one transaction of any type. As such, it is not an assessment of whether substantive updates have been made, but rather whether any more recent transactions have been added.
- As such, this will motivate publishers to publish at least one transaction with a more recent date every time they update their data.
- Bigger picture, the goal is to motivate more frequent and predictable updates.
OUTPUT |
Categorisation of frequency:
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METHODOLOGY - calculate frequency assessment |
For publishers of 1 year or more |
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For publishers of 6 months or more |
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For publishers of 3 months or more |
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For publishers of less than 3 months |
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Note: future transaction dates will be discounted from the measure as they contradict IATI rules.
Please find below a visualisation for this proposed measure. Do note that this has been created to help participants picture what the DQI could look like. It is not final, nor part of the proposed methodology:
Guiding questions - please refer to the question number when you respond via the comment box below!
1. How many and which frequency categories should be used?
- Are the ones listed still useful or should they be reduced, or others be added? Would it be useful to have a category for 'every two years' and 'less than every two years'?
2. How many updates should be required to qualify for each category?
- For data users, predictability is key, so taking an average provides a misleading assessment of the frequency of publication.
- Should a publisher get credit for publishing weekly if they have published 4 updates a month but all in one week? Or should they be required to update their data 1 time per week?
- Should a publisher get credit for publishing monthly if they have only published in 10 out of the past 12 months (or 5 out of the past 6 months) or should they be required to publish in all 12 months?
3. Should there be 4 categories used to calculate the frequency assessment as presented, or should this be reduced?
- For example, should there only be 2 categories, to include 'For publishers of 1 year or more' and 'For publishers of less than 1 year'? Would this make it easier to understand how each type of publisher is being assessed?
4. Do you agree that future transaction dates should be ignored from the assessment?
- In other words, a publisher will not get credit for updating their transactions if they are for future dates.
5. Should publishers get credit for publishing transactions with a transaction value of 0?
Webinar
For each discussion, the IATI Secretariat will organise a webinar to explain the proposed methodology, answer questions and further explain how to engage.
- Please find an overview of the most frequently asked questions of the Timeliness and Validation webinar here.
- Missed the DQI Webinar on Data Completeness held on March 30? Watch the recordings here or read the summary here!
Hi Yohanna - apologies again for delayed response due to technical error on my part. In reference to your question on why predictability is key for data users, predictable and timely publishing is especially important for data users from partner country governments - predictable and timely information ensures that they can be confident about the amounts and the timing of disbursements, especially in regards to using this information for their own planning and budgeting purposes.
Anna Whitson
Hi Anna
Thank you for your response. Yes, I understand that predictability of funding is important for partners. However, predictability of *publishing* isn't quite as crucial, at least not enough to design a whole indicator around it.
Regarding "active activity", I cannot believe that I have to say it again - I'm sorry but this is getting ridiculous: an actual-end-date cannot be in the FUTURE, by its very definition. This is from the 2.03 IATI standard: "11.1.5: The actual end date of the activity must not be in the future."