Avoiding Conversion Aversion or Preaching to the Converters 211Ontario.ca Presentation to 2009 AIRS Conference Mining for I&R Excellence June 2009

Avoiding Conversion Aversion or Avoiding Conversion Aversion or Preaching to the ConvertersPreaching to the Converters

211Ontario.ca

Presentation to 2009 AIRS Conference

Mining for I&R ExcellenceJune 2009

E Pluribus Unum – Canadian StyleE Pluribus Unum – Canadian Style

211Ontario.ca

Presentation to 2009 AIRS Conference

Mining for I&R ExcellenceJune 2009

What is the 211Ontario.ca Project?What is the 211Ontario.ca Project?

• An online province-wide bilingual directory of community, social, health and related government services, searchable by topic, geography and keyword.

What is the 211Ontario.ca Project?What is the 211Ontario.ca Project?

• The online channel for 211 service delivery in Ontario. An important compliment to 211 telephone service

• $3 million investment over 3 years

• Led by Findhelp Information Services

Supporting the development of the Supporting the development of the directory: directory:

• Development and implementation of the AIRS Canadian bilingual Taxonomy of human services for enhanced searching

• Strengthened data partnerships across Ontario

• Improved consistency and quality of data

• Spin-off project to create French language community resource information

Background - OntarioBackground - Ontario

• Canada’s largest province by population (13M)• Canada’s 2nd largest province by total area• 72% of population live in communities of more than 100K• Large population of First Nation, Metis and Inuit living in urban centres and on reservations• Large population of Francophones• Toronto (capital) is the most multi-cultural city in the world

Background - HistoryBackground - History Over 25 years of successful collaboration in Ontario’s I&R Sector

• The umbrella organization representing over 40 Community Information Centres (CIC’s) and associated Information and Referral Providers around the province of Ontario

• Mission to strengthen and enhance CIC’s in Ontario by providing them with leadership in the areas of standards, accreditation, marketing, development and information technology

• Common thesaurus and style guide

1996 to present: Ontario data collaborative1996 to present: Ontario data collaborative

Name Type Target population

Ontario Victim Support Services •Phone (Victim support line)•Online

Victims and families of victims of crimes

Employment Ontario •Online Unemployed and under-employed

Access to Professions and Trades

•Online Foreign-trained professionals

211 Extended hours • Phone Residents of Central East, Niagara, Northern Ontario, Halton Region and Windsor-Essex

Youth Justice Services Online Youth in conflict with the law

Aboriginal Services Directory Online •First Nations•Metis•Inuit

Justice services and Resources Directory

Online Parole officers and prison release planning

Newcomer services Online (Web services) Newcomers to Ontario

Background - SoftwareBackground - Software

CIOC is a member-based non-profit consortium formed in 1999 to create, improve and support its online software so that its members can efficiently serve the public and fulfill their own mandates.

CIOC is all about building community online - people helping people by sharing information, experience and resources.

21 of 22 lead data partners use CIOC software making it easier to share data

Map of Current Ontario Data CollaborativeMap of Current Ontario Data Collaborative

• 22 lead partners• 52 agencies around Ontario• coordinated by Findhelp• community information centres, libraries, health care providers• over 56,000 community resource records

Provide

Service Provider Agencies

Provided Services

People in Need

LocalData

Partners

Collect Data From

211Ontario.ca Data Store Search

WWW

Use

211Ontario.ca Web

Application

Send Data to/Collect data from

Data FlowData Flow

Background - AgreementsBackground - AgreementsCurrent Provincial data agreements

• Standard agreement specifying• Basic inclusion policy• Frequency and method of update• Usage and intellectual property rights• Data standards• Compensation (addendum)

• Between Findhelp and each lead partner

• Rolled over annually with little or no change

Future agreements will be negotiated between the Ontario 211 Services Corp. and each of the 8 211 Operators. Operators will, in turn have agreements with local data Partners.

Agreements will be expanded to include French language coverage and tighter data qulity measures

211Ontario.ca – program for change211Ontario.ca – program for change

Quarterly updates Weekly updates Daily updates

1980’s Style Guide 2009 style guide

No naming standard well-defined naming authority

Thesaurus Taxonomy

No process and audit tools centrally managed process and audit tools

Slow feedback to partners regular feedback to partners

No guidelines for working in French French included in style guide

Locally managed reference data common reference data

Challenges – location, location, locationChallenges – location, location, location

• Located-in community and area served emerge as two most critical fields for searching

• Hierarchical communities table was a good start as common reference data

• 18 records with no located-in community• 543 records with no area served• 192 records with inappropriate location data (e.g. local health clinic with area served=Ontario; Area served=Not limited)

Challenges – French language recordsChallenges – French language records

• Of 4,808 records for programs and services offered in French, 2,589 have no French view

• Few agencies have staff who can maintain bilingual records

• Summer students do not have sufficient training to meet standards

• Automated translators are not acceptable!

Solution:• Spin-off project launched to build partnerships with francophone agencies and enable them to maintain records

• Findhelp Francophone staff create and update records on behalf of partners

Challenges – duplicationChallenges – duplication

• Example: 52 Kids Help Phone records Multiple provincial government service records

• Solution: Only export records for programs and services within your local catchment area

Challenges – mappingChallenges – mapping

• Mapping based on street address

• 6K records could not be geo-coded for map display• Invalid addresses• Rural locations not found in Google• “Street address = Same as mailing address”

• Geo-coding not automatically updated when address changes

• What to do with non-public addresses

• Solution: Data management application assigns geocode, based on street address, located-in community, postal code or intersection, at the time a record is created or updated.

Priority 2 Services• Optional by community• Second priority for translation

Other Services- TBD• for-profit services• Clubs and interest groups• Etc.

Priority 1 Services• Required from all partners (global)• Highest priority for translation

Challenges – inclusion policyChallenges – inclusion policy

Challenges – search logic or making one Challenges – search logic or making one size fit all without writing thousands of size fit all without writing thousands of lines of codelines of code

• Search logic is based on the InformOntario style guide

• Description is not included in key word search

• Data partners who don’t follow the style guide don’t get expected search results

ExampleSubject search name: Community Access ProgramsLogic: “community access program” in org name or alternate org nameProblem: Several communities don’t follow this style guide recommendation and get no search results

Challenges – descriptionChallenges – description

Should be light bright and tight

Most descriptions are excellent

Problems range from descriptions cut and pasted from a website to the small novel (2 were too large to fit in the field allotment)

Translation poses its own challenges

The work to create and implement a Canadian

version of the AIRS/211LA County Taxonomy

of Human Services within the 211Ontario.ca

project had three steps:

1. Creation of the Canadian version

2. Adoption of the Taxonomy in Ontario

3. Outreach for sustainability

Challenges – taxonomyChallenges – taxonomy

1) Creation of the Canadian version1) Creation of the Canadian version

• All English terms and definitions were completed by the end of 2006, matching the (now) over 9000 US terms

• On the French side, all terms have been completed and all definitions of terms in the starter set

• Additional funding must be found to complete the remaining French definition

• All available on the taxonomy site

1) Creation of the Canadian version1) Creation of the Canadian version

• A bilingual Canadian Editorial Team has been assembled to aggregate regional queries and requests for the consideration of the Taxonomy Editor in LA, and to support 211 operators in British Columbia and Quebec that will be adopting the system.

• Ontario leadership within this group has been key to the development, maintenance and adoption of the Taxonomy. Recent new members of the Team include staff from Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary (users since 1999) and from Quebec City

2) Adoption of the Taxonomy in Ontario2) Adoption of the Taxonomy in Ontario

• In March 2007 an AIRS Taxonomy trainer trained regional and Findhelp editors in Taxonomy indexing skills.

• Teams of regional and Findhelp editors then delivered indexing training to their regional colleagues in May and June.

• Application development completed to support indexing with the taxonomy


• Training tools and the new Canadian Taxonomy listserv in turn supported the editors in the 38 participating organizations to complete conversion of their own databases.

• Regional trainers met every two months via teleconference to surface training and indexing issues and resolve them.


• Conversion took place from the fall of 2007 to March 31 2008 with participating agencies reporting progress on a monthly basis.

• At the conclusion of this phase of the project, 86% of the records needed for 211Ontario.ca had been indexed. By the end of May 2008, completion was 100%


• April to June 2008 brought the next big task which is assessing the quality of indexing, reviewing for consistency among data partners, and making adjustments before the database is available publicly.


11 agencies/programs with ‘Distress Centre’ in name:

• 8 – use General Crisis Intervention Hotlines(2 also: Suicide Prevention Programs)(1 also: Suicide Prevention Hotlines)

• 2 – use Suicide Prevention Hotlines(also Crisis Intervention)

• but service is broader• 1 – uses Telephone Crisis Intervention

• but a not-to-be-used broader term,says Starter

Some concern in other similar cases of use of Helplines/Warmlines for services involving distress

Suicide Prevention Hotlines also used 2 times, suitably, for suicide-specific lines.


Mental health centres:

• concern that most records do not use a facility term (such as Community Mental Health Agencies) and focus on specific services, so difficult to gather together.

• Community Mental Health Agencies defined as “City or county-operated”, does not accommodate community-operated.

Taxonomy updating when part of a collaborative: what’s different?

agree on a shared update schedule standardize around a version Synchronizing of customization decisions leave transition time to accommodate re-

indexing


Update Process• 3 times a year (Feb, June & Oct), master file

downloaded from L.A.

• Canadian editorial team aims to complete any important work before download.

• Master file from LA incorporated into each CIOC application, with best guess as to local activation/deactivation for new terms.

• Master file also available to non-CIOC users.


3) Outreach for sustainability3) Outreach for sustainability

• Presentations and contacts have been made government, library, and funding bodies.

• The Taxonomy is now listed on the Library and Archives Canada web site as a classification system that government information managers may wish to use

• A proof of concept has been completed which indicated that terms in the Governments of Canada Service Reference Model (GSRM) could be mapped to Taxonomy terms.

Project closeoutProject closeout - - successessuccesses

• French language resource development

• Professional application development approach (prototyping)

• Proximity search feature

• Stakeholder involvement

• Transition to Ontario 211 Services Corporation

Project closeoutProject closeout - - successessuccesses

• Taxonomy conversion

• Support for CIOC application for re-development funding

• Project teamwork

• OLA with City of Toronto

If we had it to do over….If we had it to do over….• Staff turnover

• Ensure knowledge transfer• Identify and communicate impact on schedule

• Communication• Assign a communication prime with responsibility for project communication• Encourage two-way communication by asking directly for feedback• Make feedback as easy and as useful as possible by being specific and using templates

If we had it to do over….If we had it to do over….• Browser technology

• Develop with the most problematic browser• Ensure testing with all browsers in scope

• Managing critical dependencies• Enlist CIOC developers onto project team• Establish a formal relationship with CIOC addressing the dependencies• Make feedback as easy and as useful as possible by being specific and using templates• Documentation of processes, roles and responsibilities• Continuous logging and tracking of issues

If we had it to do over….If we had it to do over….• Managing stakeholder expectations

• State assumptions/explore for assumptions on the part of the stakeholder• Increase communication when major changes to scope, schedule, etc occur

• Managing changing environment • One-on-one meetings with new stakeholders to introduce the project• Identify environmental change as a risk factor in long projects

Next steps Next steps

• Ensure indexing quality and consistency issues are dealt with using subject search logic as test plan

• Conduct data audits using tool set

• Complete the standard communities table

• Improve usability

• Provide local views of directory

Thank You!

Contact: Kathy Kelly Manager, 211Ontario.ca Findhelp Information Services [email protected] 416-392-4658

John Allec Manager, Information Resources and Taxonomy Findhelp Information Services [email protected] 416-392-4572

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Avoiding Conversion Aversion or Preaching to the Converters 211Ontario.ca Presentation to 2009 AIRS Conference Mining for I&R Excellence June 2009