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Understanding IMSMA Information Model

239 bytes removed, 14:10, 21 May 2014
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Items are entered into {{IMSMANG}} by means of a Data Entry Form. Typically, each category of items has its own Data Entry Form template for recording information specific to that category. When entered into {{IMSMANG}}, all Data Entry Form items must be assigned to a location, which is tied to the country’s gazetteer, or political or administrative structure. The items can then be traced back to the country structure so that users can easily report data such as the number and size of hazardous areas within a particular province.
 
Part of defining and documenting an information model includes defining the useful information attributes for each {{IMSMANG}} item. {{IMSMANG}} comes with more than 1,000 data elements already defined as well as the capability to create additional custom-defined fields (CDFs). This makes it important to critically assess which data elements are useful to a programme for decision-making, analysis and reporting and to focus on those while ignoring data elements that don’t provide additional value. Limiting information to only that which is useful to the programme provides long-term benefits including reducing the data collection and data entry burden and improving system performance. And, while many data elements may be collected for each {{IMSMANG}} item, some elements may be more important for analysis than others. For example, whether a victim has been injured or killed may be more important for analysis than the victim’s nationality.
 
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Item SubcategoriesCategories / Types
! Item
! Subcategory Examples
| Land
|
* Battle area* Dangerous area* MinefieldSHA
* CHA
* UXO spotEOD Spot Task* Ammunition Storage
|-
| Activity
|
* Non-Technical survey
* Technical survey
* Clearance
* Completion survey
* Technical survey
* Progress report
|-
| Accident
* Demining accident
* Mine accident
|-
| Victim
|
* Civilian
* Deminer
|-
| Victim assistance
|
* Medical
* Financial
|-
| Education activity
|
* Peer-to-peer
|-
| Quality Management (QM) activity
|
* Quality management
* Quality control
|-
|}
Part of defining and documenting an information model includes defining the useful information attributes for each {{IMSMANG}} item. {{IMSMANG}} comes with more than 1,000 data elements already defined as well as the capability to create additional custom-defined fields (CDFs). This makes it important to critically assess which data elements are useful to a programme for decision-making, analysis and reporting and to focus on those while ignoring data elements that don’t provide additional value. Limiting information to only that which is useful to the programme provides long-term benefits including reducing the data collection and data entry burden and improving system performance. And, while many data elements may be collected for each {{IMSMANG}} item, some elements may be more important for analysis than others. For example, whether a victim has been injured or killed may be more important for analysis than the victim’s nationality.
Each of the seven categories of items can be divided into subcategories categories or types so users can collect information for each subcategorycategory/type. For example, users can specify Land are normally divided into different categories/types of land such as dangerous areas, confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs), minefields and battle areas and manage each kind category of land are managed differently. Using subcategoriescategories/types, information managers can:
* create separate workflows for each category/type of landLand* create and manage separate data entry formsData Entry Form templates per category/type* differentiate between item categories /types on the map
Additionally, information managers can customise the subcategories categories so that unused subcategories categories can be removed inactivated and other subcategories categories added. The same is true for all top-level items within {{IMSMANG}}, which lets information managers specify their exact information model, including the relationships among item categories, and adjust the model as their needs change over time. To accurately map the information model for a programmeMine Action Programme, it’s helpful to evaluate the available item subcategories categories and determine if changes to the information model in {{IMSMANG}} are required. While these values can be customised after system setup, understanding the types of information for each item is critical to implementing an effective workflow in {{IMSMANG}}. Table 5 shows examples of the possible subcategories of {{IMSMANG}} items.
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