Searching in D-Portal by policy markers

[AriaGrab]

Currently it is not possible to search for policy markers in D-portal. It would be nice to be able to search for projects/activities by a specific OECD policy markers (ie Gender) as are in the IATI standard. Ideally there would be a secondary search function or the ability to specify the significance of the specific policy marker so that it is possible to search the policy marker to determine if it is marked as principal or significant or screened not targeted or a 2, 1, or 0. This should be in addition to other filters if possible. For example it would be ideal to search in a specific country for activities that are marked with the principal gender policy marker, or search for projects in a specific country and sector that are also labeled as a significant gender project. While I am using the gender policy marker as the example, it would great to have it for all the policy markers in the standard (http://iatistandard.org/203/codelists/PolicyMarker/).

[notshi]

Thank you for raising this @AriaGrab, we are currently looking at implementing policy-marker into d-portal.

These are the parts to enable this:

1. Display policy markers in SAVi
2. Add the data to the database
3. Connect the new data as parameters in d-portal URLs
4. Add these parameters to the search interface as filters
5. Testing and debugging

This is the SAVi page of the example we will be using to display the policy-marker element.

This will be the same SAVi page with policy-marker displayed

<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="1" significance="1"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="2" significance="2"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="3" significance="1"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="4" significance="1"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="5" significance="1"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="8" significance="1"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="99" code="8" significance="1">
<narrative xml:lang="en">Urban issues</narrative>
<narrative xml:lang="fr">Questions urbaines</narrative>
</policy-marker>
<policy-marker vocabulary="99" code="9" significance="1">
<narrative xml:lang="en">Children's issues</narrative>
<narrative xml:lang="fr">Questions touchant les enfants</narrative>
</policy-marker>
<policy-marker vocabulary="1" code="9" significance="1"/>
<policy-marker vocabulary="99" code="10" significance="1">
<narrative xml:lang="en">Youth issues</narrative>
<narrative xml:lang="fr">Questions touchant les jeunes</narrative>
</policy-marker>
<policy-marker vocabulary="99" code="11" significance="1">
<narrative xml:lang="en">Indigenous issues</narrative>
<narrative xml:lang="fr">Questions touchant les populations autochtones</narrative>
</policy-marker>
<policy-marker vocabulary="99" code="12" significance="1">
<narrative xml:lang="en">Disability issues</narrative>
<narrative xml:lang="fr">Questions touchant les personnes handicapées</narrative>
</policy-marker>

This is the policy-marker in XML

I've worked through various layouts of how best to display the section and have decided on the above design. There will be edge cases that may break this layout, eg. activities with vocab 99 that are published without vocabulary-uri or narrative so we will need to look out for those and adjust the code accordingly.

The secondary search function to specify significance adds a layer of complexity to the process.

Consider these two examples you mention:

1. For example it would be ideal to search in a specific country for activities that are marked with the principal gender policy marker,

2. or search for projects in a specific country and sector that are also labeled as a significant gender project.

To make this work, we will need to tightly couple the attributes, policy-marker code and policy-marker significance so the results of the search will make sense.

[AriaGrab]

This is really great! Thanks so much for working on this, and I am hopefully that the attributes can be tightly coupled because being able to determine the significance will be really helpful.

[notshi]

Hi @AriaGrab - just letting you know that we are now working on steps 4 & 5.

The policy-markers are already being displayed in SAVi but it's going to take some time before they show up on the front page as filters.

Example page - http://d-portal.org/ctrack.html#view=act&aid=CA-3-A033419001

[stevieflow]

It's great to see this. I had similar feedback from participants in a workshop. Thanks to @AriaGrab for raising, and for @notshi for implementing !

In terms of the filters, then one suggestion might be to just start with a filter of the Policy Markers, regardless of significance, for now. That might just help people filter, which I think is an important use case.

[AriaGrab]

Hi @notshi I am curious if there is any update on including this search filter on d-portal? I am hoping to get someone to do work that needs this search feature first, and I understand its a bit more complicated and you have a lot of others things on your plate, but any kind of estimate would be helpful. I really appreciate it!

[notshi]

Hi @AriaGrab, many thanks for your patience.

Policy marker search filter is now live on d-portal. There may be teething issues and bugs - if you or your colleague finds them, do let us know so we can make it better.

[AriaGrab]

Hi @notshi this is incredible news, I am so excited and happy I really appreciate it! This definitely made my day :) While checking it out just now I discovered what may be a bug. If I choose more than one policy marker category, in which it says thousands of projects exist under that marker (so exciting!) but when I click explore results 0 activities show up. I checked a few different policy marker combinations (principal and significant or other combos) to see if it was just one of them (gender equality, and climate adaption, and climate mitigation) but it was the same result for all. If I just choose one marker category results do show up though. Still very much usable and helpful though so massive thanks again.

[notshi]

Hi @AriaGrab - this bug is now fixed on the site. Many thanks for testing this out and sending in your findings.

[stevieflow]

This looks interesting, thanks @notshi

@AriaGrab in turn, this might create a number of "results issues" - maybe wrapped up in the specifics Policy Markers/Significance, and how they are used/defined.

For example - of the MILLIONS of IATI activities, only 57 have gender equality as the explicit objective.

There are, however, 28,960 that have Gender equality as a principle objective

What's the difference between explicit and principle objectives? I'd have to know about the IATI codelist on PolicySignificance (which lacks a description for Explicit objective) and then maybe hunt around OECD DAC documentation (there's no reference to Explicit here?). What would we expect someone less forgiving to do?

Whilst we should not shy away from this, I think there some thought needed about the impact this can have on data users (or casual browsers). Shall we start a thread on IATI Discuss?

[k8hughes]

Now the fix has happened in d-portal and this issue is discussing something related to the IATI standard should we mark this as closed? @stevieflow did you do a discuss thread on this in the end?

[k8hughes]

As there have been no further comments I am closing this issue.