The GIN Project Plan for the 2018/19 School Year

In our previous post, Ryan Williams and Kat Whitton went behind the curtain of the GIN Project. In that same vein, I want to introduce myself and let you know the GIN Project’s plan for the next academic year.

First, my name is Caleb Ray. I am a graduate student in Law and Global Policy at the University of Texas. I was on the Global Indices Network team last year and worked closely with Kat and Ryan over the last several months to make sure I am ready to pick up where they left off. Their contributions were invaluable — without them the project would not be where it is today. Ryan and Kat, thank you for all your hard work.

Second, what can we expect from the Global Indices Network Project in the next year? Our first goal this year is to finalize our draft paper, The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices, for publication. Last year, we deconstructed 46 indices (pared down from the 76 indices we evaluated against our criteria) and created a network with 3304 separate nodes. You can read more detailed information about what we accomplished last year by the numbers in Ryan’s post here. In The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices, we situate our work in the broader context of global indices and their proliferation, and explain our sampling strategy, methodology, network analysis techniques, initial findings, and ideas for further research. This year, we will build on our analysis of the network and finalize The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices for publishing.

Our other main focus this year will be the Measuring and Evaluating the Transparency of Assessments (META) Project, one of our four ideas for further research in The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices. In the META Project, we will develop a methodology to assess and score how transparent an index is in the act of rating and ranking countries and whether or not a third party could reproduce the index’s scores. Using our methodology and index scores, we may also create our own Transparency of Global Indices (TGI) Index.

The META Project and TGI Index will help us understand and communicate how a lack of transparency and reproducibility affects our network. They will also draw attention to transparency and reproducibility — or lack thereof — of specific indices within the network and will allow us to name and shame non-transparent publishers.

We have two ongoing goals in addition to our two major projects. First, and most importantly for you, we will publish regular updates on the progress on our paper and on the META Project. These updates will cover our results and our process, including further insight into the network, deep dives into individual indices, insight into the META criteria, and any important administrative happenings.

Our second ongoing goal will be to incorporate our new team members to the GIN Project. Each year, we welcome new students to our team from Innovations for Peace and Development (IPD), our parent organization at UT-Austin. One of the key tenets of IPD is to develop students’ skills, facilitate professional growth, and provide real world experience in international development.

To facilitate this, GIN Project provides members with a wide variety of opportunities for personal, professional and academic growth related to the META Project and The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices.

Our members will delve into the conceptual material as a team, including how the act of rating and ranking countries creates power, the role of network analysis, how to define transparency and reproducibility, and why it matters if an index is transparent and reproducible. They will have the opportunity to learn technical coding skills and apply them to analyze our network. They will get to share insight and analysis and to practice writing and editing skills by publishing here and working on The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices. Students will also help finalize our own methodology to assess index transparency for the META Project, review and score individual indices, and share their results here.

Finally, as you heard from Ryan and Kat — and as I am about to discover myself — running the GIN Project is a challenging and valuable experience. Any students who are interested in the administrative side of the project and want to learn from our mistakes will be able to do so.

I am excited to take over the helm from Katherine and Ryan and look forward to leading the new and returning members of the Global Indices Network Team. We will be onboarding new team members for the next two weeks. Afterwards, check back here for regular updates on our network analysis, The Networked Power and Pathologies of Global Indices, and the META Project from myself and other members of our team.