Proposal: Towards an IATI Indicator Definition Schema

[Herb Caudill]

I said I wouldn't, but I've gone ahead and sketched out what an indicator definition standard might look like:

http://blog.devresults.com/proposed-indicator-definition-schema/

There's a fairly lengthy preamble on this post, trying to make two points:

• First, that we need this standard in order for IATI to be a viable format for results reporting. 
• Second, that IATI should be the home for this standard. 

I think I might have been misunderstood earlier when I suggested that this be added to IATI. I wasn't suggesting that IATI curate and maintain a standard list of indicators. IATI's role would be (a) to maintain a standard schema for indicator definitions, and (b) to maintain a list of indicator definition repositories. It seems to me that both of these jobs are necessary, manageable, and within IATI's remit. 

Please let me know what you think.

Best,

Herb

PS If you want to just cut to the chase, I've put together a sample XML indicator repository file here: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/HerbCaudill/8401462531f5e0e7262a/raw/86fc89a569da07dcdbb09b0af265043b3d19f216/indicator-library-sample

Herb Caudill
Founder | Chief Technology Officer
202.294.7901

DevResults: A better way to manage international aid. | www.devresults.com