Discussion

Covid-19 guidance musings

Reid Porter
Reid Porter • 1 April 2020

Perhaps I should just wait for the webinar in 10 minutes, but I was just corresponding with Petya Kangalova on the support desk re. the Covid-19 guidance.

Essentially, there’s obvious scalability and useability concerns with adding free text “Covid-19” to the title. It gets the discoverability job done, but potentially becomes noise in activity titles as more and more programming has to adapt to a changing world. If coronavirus becomes a seasonal but unvaccinated ongoing reality, will every activity in the world eventually be suffixed as “–Covid-19”?

I had some brief discussions about using <tag> for Covid-19, but obviously that requires a new codelist to be added/used, and the obvious codelists are already in use in <humanitarian-scope>

But that got me thinking: what exactly is Covid-19?

Sure, in it’s an emergency/appeal, and for a certain audience that’s sufficient. But for a more generalist (or even niche) data user/researcher, <tag> was meant to be the user-desired yet easy-on-publishers discoverability tool. Of course, that requires codelists to avoid the perils of free text.

So aside from disaster/response codelists already spoken for, what is Covid-19 that makes it interesting to said researcher: a cross-cutting issue? a particular methodology (i.e. remote monitoring, local decision-making, socially distanced programming)? an international topic of concern? (To be clear, these are all poor examples that don’t translate well to codelists).

I guess my question is: has anyone else considered alternatives for tracking and tagging Covid-19 data within their donor ecosystem? (I know you have, but I’ll refrain from calling you out:-)

Comments (4)

sandravidal
sandravidal

I hope this message finds you well. I was recently in correspondence with Petya Kangalova on the support desk regarding the challenges associated with incorporating "Covid-19" into activity titles for discoverability within our system.

While the addition of free text "Covid-19" aids discoverability, scalability, and usability concerns have arisen. As the world continues to adapt to an ever-changing environment, the potential saturation of activity titles with Covid-19-related information poses challenges. If Covid-19 becomes an ongoing reality, the question arises whether every activity will eventually be suffixed with "–Covid-19."

In our discussion, we briefly touched upon the idea of using <tag> for Covid-19. However, this would require the addition of a new codelist, and the existing codelists in <humanitarian-scope> are already in use.

This led me to ponder: What exactly is Covid-19? For emergency/appeal purposes, it serves its function, but for a broader audience, <tag> was designed to be a user-desired yet easy-to-use discoverability tool. However, this necessitates codelists to avoid the challenges associated with free text.

Beyond the disaster/response codelists already allocated, what makes Covid-19 interesting to a researcher or data user? Is it a cross-cutting issue, a specific methodology (e.g., remote monitoring, local decision-making, socially distanced programming), or an international topic of concern? (Note: These are examples and may not translate well to codelists).

My primary question is whether others in our ecosystem have explored alternatives for tracking and tagging Covid-19 data within their donor frameworks. I'm eager to learn about diverse perspectives and potential solutions in addressing this evolving challenge.


Please log in or sign up to comment.