Melanie Bacou, IFPRITodd Slind, Spatial Development International

Project Management Monitoring Tools

Africa RISING–CSISA Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11-13 November 2013

Africa RISING “Project Mapping and Reporting Tool” (PMT) – latest developments and next stepshttp://dev.harvestchoice.org/africarising/

Project monitoring and reporting using AR PMT – existing features and future needs

Fostering an open-data community, open-data standards, and organizational learning

Questions and problems

Agenda

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PMT is envisioned as a place for capturing high-level M&E framework, data, and results, hurdles, decisions and adjustments made over AR project lifecycle:− Site stratification and selection− Intervention specifics− Baseline site characteristics− Bi-annual FtF (and other project-specific) indicators− Survey and evaluation results− All intermediary and final output (incl. primary data)

With the objective to clarify reporting requirements and ease data entry, and dissemination.

Evaluation design is hard. Reporting is painful…

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Jan 2012: initial AR PMT prototype showing site stratification Nov 2013: AR PMT release 1.0 with final site locations, site

descriptions, and 2012-2013 FtF indicators:− Precise locations of 145 target communities across 5 countries− Records of implementing partners, local partners, community

characteristics, and details of AR interventions (on-going)− Release of 2013 FtF indicators (actual and 5-year targets) for all 3

megasites− On-line secure data-entry forms to record community-level indicators

Nov 2013: release of an open-data platform to store, catalog and share all AR project data (upon USAID suggestion)

Progress to date…

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PMT - Project Mapping

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Demo of AR PMT mapping and visualizing features.http://dev.harvestchoice.org/africarising/

Location selector: Zoom to a selected location.

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Site Clusters: Action and Control sites grouped by country.

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Basemap Selector: Choose between photography, topography and street map hybrids.

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Info boxes: Click on a site to view more details or to zoom in to a single community location

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Layer Library and Control: Choose from a wide variety of contextual maps.

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Layer Legend and Visibility Control: Combine several layers on the map at once.

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HarvestChoice Spatial Data Library: access over 200 bio-physical, socio-economic and agricultural data layers at 10x10km resolution

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Map Print: Create an image file of your map to print or include in a document.

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PMT - Project Monitoring

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Demo of AR PMT performance monitoringand reporting features.

http://dev.harvestchoice.org/africarising/

− Currently holding all contributed FtF indicators for the 3 megasites− Fully flexible design originally intended to collect actual/target

indicators for any time period and for any community (but data entry could take place at country or activity-level, if more appropriate)

− Data schema allows for “vertical” rollups to greater levels of aggregation (from communities up to megasites)

− Schema is extensible to allow for new indicators to be added over time (we are not limited to FtF indicators).

− Currently no batch import/export of indicator tables, but easy to add as needed.

Reporting of FtF Indicators

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Yearly megasite indicators in Africa RISING Project Mapping and Reporting Tool.

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Data-entry forms to capture FtF indicators by community.

People, Processes and Tools for Open-Data

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How Africa RISING can set standards for systematic data sharing to increase research uptake and empower

communities?

Low access to recent and quality primary data a huge barrier to African researchers

Researcher's responsibility to ensure that policy makers, advocacy groups, journalists and citizens in Africa have access to curated and documented data to make informed decisions about their lives

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Data is not the property of researchers, and access to publicly-funded data should not be monopolized

Data without borders: Men on the Samburu National Reserve, Kenya, using a laptop Photograph: Scott Stulberg/Corbis

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Davies, Tim (2013) Open Data Barometer, 2013 Global Report, Web Foundation

http://opendataresearch.org/dl/odb2013/Open-Data-Barometer-2013-Global-Report.pdf

2012 World Bank Open Access Policy for Research and Knowledgehttp://data.worldbank.org/about− policies on open access to information− Creative Commons Attribution copyright

license− Open-data Catalog− Open Knowledge Repository− grants to develop country strategies and build

capacity for publishing data, and to increase data uptake

− cross-donor and cross-government efforts to set metadata and data quality standards and common vocabularies

Donors now massively engaged in greater access to data and results transparency in developing countries

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DfID Open and Enhanced Access Policy (July 2012) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfid-research-open-and-enhanced-access-policy− linking DFID aid data with partner county

budget data and promote national budget transparency

− project geocoding (IATI)− Distinguishes between output types (peer-

reviewed, grey literature, book chapters, datasets, multimedia, websites, software)

− publish all project evaluations, reports and datasets to R4D

− allow access to DFID funded research and supporting datasets with set time requirements (bi-annual or immediately after publication) and minimum metadata

− encourage researchers to submit output under Creative Commons Attribution license.

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CGIAR Open Access Policy (approved Oct 2, 2013) − definition of open access− definitions of information products (peer-

reviewed articles, reports and papers, book chapters, datasets, models and survey tools, multimedia, software, web services, associated metadata)

− published output to be discoverable in CGIAR institutional repositories and interoperable with other repos through shared standards and/or APIs

− all public data to be made available within 12 months of collection or 6 months of publication

− Encourage the use of suitable open licenses− CG to provide incentives and professional

expertise to researchers

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E.g. IFPRI released 99 datasets since 2000 on Dataverse with over 22,000 downloads.

Results for which 50% or more funding comes from USAID must be made publicly accessible online and in perpetuity for search, retrieval, analysis, and use in accordance with a Govt-issued license within 12 months of end of grant period (secured of privacy, security concerns, or other exceptions)

Ensure that public can locate, access, use, analyze, and download in machine-readable format all documents that result from USAID-funded work

Identify and provide attribution to all datasets made available

Ensure that publications, underlying data, metadata, and any products developed as part of federally-funded research are stored in an information management system

USAID grants and contracts for scientific research to develop and execute detailed, timely, accountable data management plans

USAID Research Policy on Publications and Data (draft)

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1. List and agree on what constitutes Africa RISING research output (primary, secondary data, annual progress reports, publications, questionnaires, M&E indicator…?) and a release frequency

2. List AR-produced data that does NOT belong to the public domain

3. Prioritize research output based on their public or research value (which products should receive particular attention?)

4. Agree on first-tier and second-tier dissemination channels (where to publish first, and where else to link/reference datasets, e.g. CG Centers’ catalogs, African national catalogs, etc.)

5. How to best cite and attribute AR datasets? What is the most appropriate use license?

6. What is “good enough” metadata for documenting datasets?

7. If no suitable on-line data repository is readily available, then build one.

What can we do to comply, now?

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8. Assign roles and responsibilities for:− Data and metadata preparation (add

variable names and units, sources, methods, authors, citation)

− Data curation− Uploading and securing access to data− Broader data dissemination and outreach− Ensuring we meet donor-prescribed

deadlines

9. Tap into existing CGIAR resources: our librarians want to help!

10. Make sure data goes back to communities!

What can we do to comply, now? (cont’d)

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What can we do now with Africa RISING data to ensure maximum impact?

− CKAN is an open-source, free content management system for cataloging datasets (backed by the Open Knowledge Foundation)

− CKAN is behind data.gov, data.gov.uk, africaopendata.org, data.gov.au, Edo State Nigeria, …

− Fast, lightweight, exposes resources via RDF and API for consumption in other applications or repositories

− Supports public/private resources via organization-level permissions− Supports “data hound” users who want to go directly to the data for

off-line analyses, but also allows for quick preview of datasets and documents.

− Contrary to Dataverse, does not provide features for on-line analyses (summarizing, subsetting, transforming) but does support spatial datasets (in XY or geojson formats)

Using CKAN to build AR Open-Data Catalog?

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Africa RISING ”CKAN” open-data catalog currently at http://ardata.harvestchoice.org/dataset

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Africa RISING tools also referenced in ”CKAN” open-data catalog at http://ardata.harvestchoice.org/dataset

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Africa RISING “CKAN” provides user roles and permissions per organization.http://ardata.harvestchoice.org/dataset

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Quick preview of Africa RISING datasets on “CKAN”.http://ardata.harvestchoice.org/dataset

Next Steps

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Platform consolidation, refinements to PMT user interface, additional spatial layers, custom reports,

improved data-entry, and data import/export

In the coming month:− Add descriptions of communities

and AR interventions− Improve map symbology and

navigation− Add new spatial data layers using

results from recent LSMS surveys and ag census, and from AR baseline surveys

In the next 6 months:− Tighter integration between PMT

mapping features and CKAN open-data catalog (e.g. allow users to visualize CKAN-hosted spatial layers into PMT, shared user access lists?)

− Allow 3rd-party spatial data sources to be read into and visualized alongside Africa RISING layers

− Editing improvements to include off-line data entry (possibly using mobile devices), and entry at any spatial level (community, activity, district, country, mega-site)

− Batch import/export of FtF indicators?

− Provide simple spatial analytics (point/polygon/domain summaries) as in HarvestChoice MAPPR

− Provide training to M&E coordinators and researchers

Currently on PMT Roadmap…

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Are there key audiences to reach outside of this room? Do we need to consolidate existing AR web platforms

(PMT, CKAN, wiki, Africa-rising.net) or each serves a different purpose?

What level and frequency of reporting is most appropriate, feasible and realistic?

How to best link to individual project’s platforms and tools?

Any other “cool” feature research teams would like to have?

Q&As

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Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation

africa-rising.net