It is understood that 2.01 places emphasis on the code over the code name within the data. Hence
<activity-status code="2 />
is “preferable” to
<activity-status code="2">Implementation</activity-status>
I understand that this is because the data should - as far as possible - be language neutral, so that data users can then implement multi-lingual instances of IATI, by utilising translations of the code lists, etc
However, I just wanted to state that this logic might not best be applied to the describing organisations in IATI. By this, I mean that whilst the @ref
code is very important for IATI when describing an organisation, the name (in any version of the standard) still also has a use. Namely - it’s because there isn’t a lookup list for all the possible organisations in the world (or IATI) it becomes difficult for data users to dereference organisations when just a @ref
exists.
Whilst such a service would no doubt be useful, it might be worth stating that
<participating-org ref="GB-1" role="Funding" type="10">DfID</participating-org>
could be more help to a data user than:
<participating-org ref="GB-1" role="Funding" type="10"/>
Example: take a look at this data on d-portal*: http://d-portal.org/q.xml?aid=GB-COH-1364201-BGD0173
The XML for the participating-org
does not include the name, just the @ref
. d-portal does not therefore display an organisation name - because it hasn’t (I guess) a list to lookup against (and GB-1 is not the best example)
Perhaps we need to establish clearer consensus / guidance on this? Do others think this might be a potential issue (or not)?
*NB: this isn’t a critique of d-portal - just an illustration of the challenges that we could face
Hey Dale,
A few years ago I built a simple lookup against the then spreadsheet based Organisation ID codelist - just to help people (a) identify prefixes; (b) lookup organisations if a search for IDs for the registration agency existed;
It is at https://practicalparticipation.github.io/organisation-id-tool/, but no longer working due to the move away from maintaining Organisation ID prefixes in a Google spreadsheet.
I think the solution in this space is definitely something to pursue through the Joined Up Data Alliance: a shared project to create a platform which would:
(a) Enable easier lookup of prefixes;
(b) If a third-party reconciliation service exists for IDs, map an endpoint to that;
E.g. rather than trying to maintain a full organization lookup, which is a prohibitively complex task (just ask Open Corporates about their hosting bill…), proxy requests to GB-COH to open corporates, for example, or to some other source that maintains an authoritative list of companies.
This noted: having people still include the name they know an organisation by in their IATI files is really useful, and it only only helps with cases where there isn’t an existing identifier, or lookup service - but also helps with discovery of the ‘Also Known As’ (AKAs) of organisations.
Thanks for this extra information Tim Davies - very useful to see the context of where things have been in the past. You’re right that this would definitely be one to explore with the Joined Up Data Alliance. I’ve made a note to draft up some ideas shortly. Bill Anderson is also thinking about the vision for this too.