Dictionary

A value or set of values representing a specific concept or concepts. Data becomes “information” when analyzed and possibly combined with other data in order to extract meaning and to provide context. The meaning of data can vary depending on its context and is often used interchangeably with information.

Helps you find answers to a set of defined questions. It includes the generation, aggregation, analysis, and visualization of data to inform and facilitate business management and strategy. Includes data visualization, data mining, reporting, time series analysis (including predictive techniques), online analytical processing (OLAP), and statistical analysis.

Combines data from different sources and provides users with a unified view of these data for service integration. When services are provided by multiple suppliers, the service integration challenge is to seamlessly integrate them into end-to-end services that operate as a single IT service delivery model. Data integration involves the practice of applying architectural techniques and tools to provide access and delivery of data with varied data types and structures in order to meet the data needs of the applications and business processes within an organization.

Helps find answers you did not know you were looking for beforehand. An analytical process that attempts to find correlations or patterns in large data sets for the purpose of data or knowledge discovery.13 A famous legend from the retail industry was the discovery that men between ages 30 and 40 who purchased diapers on a Friday night would most likely also have beer in their cart, which led the retailer to move diapers and beer closer to each other. Data mining has now upgraded to “big data.”

The appropriate and permissioned use and governance of personal data.

The securing of collected information. Data protection is fundamental to ensuring data privacy. Data privacy, a process and legal matter, focuses on who has authorized access, whereas data protection is more a technical matter.

Quality control processes to ensure that data are valid (complete, accurate, and consistent). It is the process of comparing data with a set of rules to find out if data are reasonable. There are many types of data validation, including the following: Format check. Data are formatted correctly (e.g., date format of dd/mm/yyyy). Presence check. Data has been entered into a field. Range check. Value falls within the specified range (e.g., IB grades can only range between 0 and 7). Type check. Correct data type has been entered (e.g., age should be a number).

Quality control processes to ensure that data values match information in other administrative systems (via cross-checking). It is the process of checking that the data entered exactly matches the original/ authoritative source to find out if data are accurate.

A subject-oriented, nonvolatile, time-variant collection of data in support of management’s decisions. It typically draws its content from a large number of operational and external databases and uses a federated architecture approach for implementation.

A large organized collection of information that is accessed via software.

A software package designed to define, manipulate, retrieve, and manage data in a database.14 It has four components: an application programming interface (API), a query interface, an administrative interface, and an underlying set of data access programs and subroutines. Application programs never access the physical data store directly. They tell an appropriate DBMS interface what data they need to read and write, using names defined in the schema.

A technique to detect duplicate identity records. Biometric data—including fingerprints and iris scans—are commonly used to de-duplicate identities in order to identify false or inconsistent identity claims and to establish uniqueness.

Assignment of policy responsibility and/or decision-making authority to a subnational (state, regional) or local (municipality, county) level of government from a higher level of government (including a transfer of such responsibilities from central to subnational or from subnational to local).

The process whereby a central organization transfers some of its responsibilities to lower-level units within its jurisdiction.

Social protection (including labor) benefits and services pass through common implementation phases along the delivery chain, including outreach, intake and registration, assessment of needs and conditions, eligibility and enrollment decisions, determination of benefits or service package, notification and onboarding, provision of payments or services, and beneficiary operations management.

A management tool for mapping the sequencing of implementation processes across actors (institutions) or levels of government. Important for establishing uniqueness and clarity of roles, and useful for mapping the “as-is” processes and potential “to-be” vision for reforms. In addition to mapping the sequencing by actor, there may be a time dimension (calendar of implementation cycles).

The individual in the beneficiary family or household who is designated as the grantee or recipient of benefits when they are paid out (for authentication and payment purposes). A designated recipient should be named for all benefits for which the assistance unit is a group (family or household). A designated recipient may also be needed for individual-based benefits if the beneficiary requires some guardian to act on their behalf (such as with orphans or severely disabled individuals).

When individuals, families, or households are presenting themselves in a Social Services service point (usually a Municipality office), seeking assistance, benefits, services, information or orientation, their registration (intake) in the system is direct. In this scenario, the user of the system (intake worker, reception or even a case manager), registers the information of the individual(s) in the system and depending on the case management methodology a case may be created. During the direct registration, the system may take advantage of any existing interoperable registry (e.g. Social Registry, Citizens registry, etc).
This scenario of direct registration or intake, is different from the indirect registration or intake where the individual(s) is referred to the system by another system with electronic means (files import or interoperability). Sometimes the indirect registration is completed with additional information that is typed-in by the user at a later stage in the workflow (e.g. when they start the case management).

Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others (International Labour Organization). An individual with a disability is defined as a person who (1) has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; (2) has a record of such an impairment; or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment.

An integrated collection of databases that is physically distributed across sites in a computer network. A distributed database management system (DDBMS) is the software system that manages a distributed database such that the distribution aspects are transparent to the users.

Data that changes as a result of an event (a transaction). The data have a time dimension, a numerical value, and refer to one or more reference data objects such as orders, invoices, and payments.