Initial discussion: http://discuss.iatistandard.org/t/keeping-maintaining-organisation-names-in-iati-data/305
Guidance - whether standalone narrative pieces or element descriptions within the schema - should clarify that the organisation name / string is recommended, regardless of version. This would negate the possibility - given the preference for codes over names in 2.0x - that publishers withdraw organisation names from their data, and/or do not investigate including them.
This proposal has been discussed amongst the IATI Technical Team following the end of the initial suggestion phase of the v2.02 upgrade.
The IATI Technical Team supports this proposal and suggest test along the lines of that proposed by Bill in his post of September 22, 2015, 12:38. Further updates on work towards the practical implementation of this proposal into the version 2.02 of the IATI standard will be posted as part of this thread.
Please see below for the technical implementation that is suggested in the Version 2.02 - Formal Proposal:
This change will not affect the schema.
Append to guidance:
‘It is strongly recommended that the name of the organisation is provided (using the narrative child element) in addition to a valid organisation identifier. Where an organisation identifier is not present the name (using the narrative child element) is mandatory.’
Steven, I fully agree since there is no global organisation identification with corresponding official names. That means that for a long time to come, the published organisation names will be the most informative element to determine wich organisation is meant.
This proposal has been added as a GitHub issue, for inclusion in the version 2.02 development branch of the IATI-Guidance repository: https://github.com/IATI/IATI-Guidance/issues/219
This proposal has now been incorporated into a version 2.02 code repositories (see the above GitHub issue link for technical details). The relevant page on a development version of the 2.02 reference and documentation site are available to view for the participating-org element.
We welcome scrutiny on the implementation of this proposal and encourage the community to feedback and suggest solutions for any errors, omissions and problems. This should be done before Monday 7 December, when the process will commence to release version 2.02 as a live version of the IATI Standard. More information on the inspection phase is available here.
I would suggest putting this also on the list of the next integer release of IATI. Since the identification of organizations is critical for the use of IATI data, the mandatory use of the organization names (if the unique reference is missing) should be an addition in the schema for the next major release (3.01). Up till then only the guideline, as mentioned above, will have to do.
Agree that this recommendation should be written into the schema definition and not just into the guidance.
"It is strongly recommended that the name of the organisation is provided in addition to a valid organisation identifier."
"... in addition to a valid organisation identifier." - I understand the need for this, but there are many many instances where no org reference is provided - often for good reason. Therefore, this guidance might need slight adjustment to accommodate that scenario
Steven the name is already required if @ref is not present.
"It is strongly recommended that the name of the organisation is provided in addition to a valid organisation identifier. Where an organisation identifier is not present the name is mandatory."
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