Summer Series: Taking Stock
By Katherine Whitton
Two years ago, this project didn’t exist. A year ago, it had no more than 8 active volunteer team members at any given time as we worked to prove it was a viable idea. This summer The GIN Project is taking stock. We are pausing to catch our breath and taking the time to think about what the Project needs for next year and the future. We know that if we pause and look around we can make sure we our actions are taking the project forward instead of adding to the chaos.
Network analysis is a powerful tool that allows us to look at information in different ways. But it is limited by the quality and quantity of the information given to it. This is one reason we’re developing a META index to share how transparent indices are, relative to one another, based on the criteria we deem necessary. This is also the reason we are always cleaning data and being critical of the information we gather. But neither of those reasons is my point. We started with an idea and now. Now, a year later, we have a network of deconstructed indices to analyze and a methodology. I want to talk about how we got here how we will take the next step.
We have been so focused on producing a network that we have not had a chance to take a step back and assess project administration. Our team has been fluid. We have processes that produce consistent data, but we developed and tweaked them on the fly.
We are taking that step back this summer to reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t and institutionalizing the knowledge we’ve learned in the last year. We are streamlining our coding template and process to make sure we capture all of the data we need. We are writing down the rationale behind our decisions over the last year. We are also creating a fully fledged training manual for new team members. We have learned a lot about how to deconstruct methodologies to create our dataset and a network to analyze and we want to make sure our knowledge stays with the project.
Our other major project this summer is to review what we’ve already done. As we reflect on our work thus far, we naturally notice things we should have done differently. Updating training materials can identify a hole the coding process. Updating the codebook means we need to update all the indices that we’ve already deconstructed.
In short, we are taking advantage of the summer clean our data, make our network more robust, and prepare our project for growth.
Starting on day one of the fall semester, The GIN Project will return to posts on analysis and development of academic research to shed further light on the environment around global indices. Right now, though, we want to shed some light on what it takes to build the internal structures necessary to run a team and provide the data for analysis. We want to give you a look behind the network.
Check back here for updates and articles on different parts of the process. Future subjects include how much we have accomplished, a discussion on the complexities of coding, a look back at Ryan and my mistakes over the last year, and team introductions/good-byes.
Katherine recently graduated with a Master in Global Policy from The LBJ School of Public Affairs. Her specialization is International Development and Governance policy. She joined LBJ and IPD after two years as an education volunteer in U.S. Peace Corps Ethiopia. During her time at LBJ she traveled to Nepal to conduct field research and served as an AidData Summer Fellow at the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) and the Resilient African Network (RAN) Lab in Kampala, Uganda. In August, she was promoted to co-lead IPD’s Global Indices Network (GIN) Project.
