Presented by Melanie Bacou, IFPRI and Todd Slind, Spatial Development International at the Africa RISING–CSISA Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11-13 November 2013

1. Project Management Monitoring Tools
Melanie Bacou, IFPRI
Todd Slind, Spatial Development International
Africa RISING–CSISA Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Meeting,
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 11-13 November 2013

2. Agenda
 Africa RISING “Project Mapping and Reporting Tool” (PMT)
– latest developments and next steps
http://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
2

3. Evaluation design is hard. Reporting is
painful…
 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.
3

4. Progress to date…
 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)
4

5. PMT - Project Mapping
Demo of AR PMT mapping and visualizing features.
http://dev.harvestchoice.org/africarising/
5

6. Location selector: Zoom to a selected location.
6

7. Site Clusters:
Action and
Control sites
grouped by
country.
7

8. Basemap Selector: Choose between photography,
topography and street map hybrids.
8

9. Info boxes: Click
on a site to view
more details or
to zoom in to a
single
community
location
9

10. Layer Library and Control: Choose from a wide variety of
contextual maps.
10

11. Layer Legend and Visibility Control: Combine several layers
on the map at once.
11

12. HarvestChoice Spatial Data Library: access over 200 bio-physical,
socio-economic and agricultural data layers at 10x10km resolution
12

13. Map Print: Create an image file of your map to print or
include in a document.
13

14. PMT - Project Monitoring
Demo of AR PMT performance monitoring
and reporting features.
http://dev.harvestchoice.org/africarising/
14

15. Reporting of FtF Indicators
− 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.
15

16. Yearly megasite indicators in Africa RISING Project Mapping and Reporting Tool.
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17. Data-entry forms to capture FtF indicators by community.
17

18. People, Processes and Tools
for Open-Data
How Africa RISING can set standards for systematic data
sharing to increase research uptake and empower
communities?
18

19. Data is not the property of researchers,
and access to publicly-funded data should
not be monopolized
 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
Data without borders: Men on the Samburu
National Reserve, Kenya, using a laptop
Photograph: Scott Stulberg/Corbis
19

20. Davies, Tim
(2013) Open
Data Barometer,
2013 Global
Report, Web
Foundation
http://opendatar
esearch.org/dl/o
db2013/OpenData-Barometer2013-GlobalReport.pdf
20

21. Donors now massively engaged in greater access to data
and results transparency in developing countries
 2012 World Bank Open Access Policy
for Research and Knowledge
http://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
21

22. 22

23.  DfID Open and Enhanced
Access Policy (July 2012)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfidresearch-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 (peerreviewed, 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.
23

24.  CGIAR Open Access Policy
(approved Oct 2, 2013)
− definition of open access
− definitions of information products (peerreviewed 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
E.g. IFPRI released 99 datasets since 2000 on
Dataverse with over 22,000 downloads.
24

25. USAID Research Policy on
Publications and Data (draft)
 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 USAIDfunded 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
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26. What can we do to comply, now?
1.
2.
3.
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
List AR-produced data that
does NOT belong to the public
domain
Prioritize research output
based on their public or
research value (which products
should receive particular
attention?)
4.
5.
6.
7.
Agree on first-tier and secondtier dissemination channels
(where to publish first, and
where else to link/reference
datasets, e.g. CG Centers’
catalogs, African national
catalogs, etc.)
How to best cite and attribute
AR datasets? What is the most
appropriate use license?
What is “good enough”
metadata for documenting
datasets?
If no suitable on-line data
repository is readily available,
then build one.
26

27. What can we do to comply, now? (cont’d)
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 now with Africa RISING data to
ensure maximum impact?
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28. Using CKAN to build AR Open-Data Catalog?
− 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)
28

29. Africa RISING
”CKAN” opendata catalog
currently at
http://ardata.har
vestchoice.org/d
ataset
29

30. Africa RISING
tools also
referenced in
”CKAN” opendata catalog at
http://ardata.har
vestchoice.org/d
ataset
30

31. Africa RISING
“CKAN” provides
user roles and
permissions per
organization.
http://ardata.har
vestchoice.org/d
ataset
31

32. Quick preview of
Africa RISING
datasets on
“CKAN”.
http://ardata.har
vestchoice.org/d
ataset
32

33. Next Steps
Platform consolidation, refinements to PMT user
interface, additional spatial layers, custom reports,
improved data-entry, and data import/export
33

34. Currently on PMT Roadmap…
 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 opendata 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 offline 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
34

35. Q&As
 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?
35

36. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification
for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net