CGIAR SLO indicators
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On p. 5 of the CGIAR SRF document, they describe indicators concerning the SLOs. @marieALaporte suggests to put those under "sustainable development target".
There are a few questions to consider.
Question 1. Are we sure that we want to distinguish targets and goals in the ontology? Right now "sustainable development target' is a data item and 'goal' is a directive information entity. This may be ok, but I want to be sure that we agree on the distinction between goals and targets and their classification.
Question 2. We should probably re-organize a bit the part of the ontology about targets. We should have a class called "target" and put "sustainable development targets" under it.
Question 3. SDGIO also contains "sustainable development goal indicator value", which is under data item. I am not sure whether we will need to use this item in this occasion. If yes, it may also need some attention (right category? needs a superclass like "indicator value"?)
Any suggestion, @marieALaporte and @pbuttigieg?
On p. 5 of the CGIAR SRF document, they describe indicators concerning the SLOs. @marieALaporte suggests to put those under "sustainable development target".
That class is for UN SDG targets exclusively.
Question 1. Are we sure that we want to distinguish targets and goals in the ontology?
Yes, at least within the SDG framework.
Right now "sustainable development target' is a data item and 'goal' is a directive information entity. This may be ok, but I want to be sure that we agree on the distinction between goals and targets and their classification.
The goals are the aims of development processes. Targets are the threshold values after which those development processes can be said to have succeeded.
Some targets are phrased better than others. For example:
By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
...offers something that can be measured.
However, cases like:
Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress
Are not so measurable or clear. This sounds more like a directive/goal than a target.
Question 2. We should probably re-organize a bit the part of the ontology about targets. We should have a class called "target" and put "sustainable development targets" under it.
We could. Looking at this with more examples, targets are like thresholds, and can be set before any measurment process. They should thus be under information content entity and not data item.
The definition would then be of the kind:
An information content entity which specifies a threshold towards or beyond which indicators reporting on the progression of a planned process should tend, in order for the process to meet its objective(s).
We can then place the SDG target underneath it and clean up its definition.
CGIAR targets (or, more likely, the general targets they map to) can then be placed in one or more sibling classes.
Question 3. SDGIO also contains "sustainable development goal indicator value", which is under data item. I am not sure whether we will need to use this item in this occasion. If yes, it may also need some attention (right category? needs a superclass like "indicator value"?)
As above, a superclass would be useful whether we use it or not in the CGIAR project. Indicators sound like they should be placed under STATO's statistic.
There is the definition of a statistical indicator and the related index.
My feeling is that we're dealing with indicators in the sense of environmental indicators / ecological indicators, and of indicator systems in particular.
Treating indicators in the context of performance indicators is also sensible for organisational objectives. See here.
Thus, we need something like:
- indicator =def. A statistic which provides information representative of the state of a system.
- performance indicator =def. An indicator which compares the state of a system being influenced by a planned process to values which correspond to that system's state when the process has achieved its objectives.
- these can be linked to development processes
- indicator system =def. A collection of indicators which have been selected to provide a more comprehensive assessment of a system's state, relative to that provided by single indicators or unprincipled collections of indicators.
- Not sure where to place a "collection" of information artifacts.
- index =def. A statistic which aggregates the values of multiple indicators.
Several of those should be ceded to STATO or a similar ontology. But we'll draft them in SDGIO for now as I'm not too clear on some of the principles in STATO.
@Mttbnchtt please look for definitions of indicators from sources such as the UN, OECD, World Bank etc.