Managing Data Collection Assets
FDW Data Collections have the option to add Data Collection assets. These assets can be:
An attached file of any type
A link to a URL, Google Doc, etc.
If you add a link to a Data Collection as an asset, consider if the platform hosting that linked information assigns permissions. For example, a link to a Google Document will not be open to others by default. If you want the information to be visible to others who have access to that Data Collection, open the permissions accordingly.
A Data Collection can contain multiple Data Points and/or Data Collection assets. Possible Data Collection assets include survey designs, training materials for enumerators, scripts used to clean or process data, code books, and profile reports and fact sheets associated with baselines.
Adding Data Collection assets
There are a few ways to add a Data Collection asset.
When adding a new Data Collection: Data Entry → Add a new Data Collection
When adding a new asset to an existing Data Collection:
Data Entry → Manage Data Collection assets
Data Processing → Display or edit an existing Data Collection
All assets must be associated with an existing Data Collection. If you use option 1 or option 2b above, the name of the Data Collection will auto-populate. If you use option 2a, you will need to search for the name of the Data Collection you wish to add an asset to.
Best practice is to include as much information as possible about the Data Collection asset. This includes a display name/title, description, and file format. The more metadata that is added for a Data Collection asset, the more useful the FDW data inventory becomes.
Editing Data Collection assets
You can edit existing assets via the Data Collection they are associated with or via the Manage Data Collection assets screen.
Editing assets will overwrite the previous file or information. If you want to add a new version of a file, consider adding a new asset instead of editing an existing one.
FDW as a Data Inventory
Data Collection assets allow the FDW to be used as a flexible data inventory of resources. A data inventory is a comprehensive catalog of an organization's data assets. It not only lists all the data sets regardless of storage location, but also includes key information about them in searchable metadata, including the file format, where they are stored, and who owns them. Using FDW as a data inventory allows data stored both in the FDW and in external locations can be accessed in a few ways:
Collections of external resources. Data Collections can be accessed directly by users familiar with their content, allowing them to easily find externally stored resources and related metadata about those resources.
Query the full inventory using the API. The FEWS NET API can be used to query the data inventory to answer questions about what data we have in certain domains regardless of where it is housed, how that data relates to other data in the system, and other details stored as metadata.
Create charts and maps of the full inventory. Tools such as the Data Freshness and Data Inventory Dashboards can be updated to allow a visual exploration of externally stored, in addition to FDW-stored, data.