Difference between revisions of "Wikimania 2009 poster abstract: Opasnet - a wiki site for improving societal decision-making"

Revision as of 07:52, 28 May 2008

Poster abstract for Wikisym 2008 will be written on this page

Introduction to Open Assessment

Open Assessment method (ORA) is a risk assessment method developed by National Public Health Institute in Finland. Open Assessment relies on open participation and free content which makes Mediawiki essential tool for this method. By using Wiki we aim to:

1. give public audience a chance to discuss about and contribute to risk assessments and decision making
2. provide information to public audience
3. collect information from public audience

We believe that by including mass collaboration into risk assessments the quality of assessments will increase as well. This will also increase level of transparency because in ideal case everything related to a particular risk assessment is freely available from internet and open for contributions at the same time someone starts the case. Unfortunately there can be some limitations if some confidential data is being used in assessments. In that kind of cases we just need to limit the level of openness and publish what is possible.

Single most important part of Open assessment method is a variable. In ORA risk assessments consists tens or even hundreds of variables. Each variable describes specific part of some real-world situation. For example variable number of cars in the United States in 2007 could describe the number of cars in the United States in 2007.

All variables share the same basic structure with 4 main attributes:

• Name

Name attribute is the identifier of the variable, which more or less describes what the real-world entity the variable describes is. Name should be descriptive and unique so two variables cannot have same name.

• Scope

Defines boundaries of variable - what it describes and what is excluded. Boundaries can relate e.g to time and space. For example time can be limited to cover only year 2007 when all the other years are excluded from variable.

• Definition

Definition is divided into 4 sub-attributes:

• Causality

Defines what upstream variables affects this variable and how.

• Data

Describes what kind of data we have about this variable (ie. measured or expert judgements). May also contain links to available datafiles.

• Unit

Defines what unit is being used in the result of this variable.

• Formula

Describes the formula used to count variables result.

• Result

Result of the variable, most preferable a probability distribution. Result can also be non-numerical expression.

In ORA method variables are open for argumentation and dispute results may change their actual content and by this way affect the whole risk assessment case result. We hope that by using ORA method we can obtain more data and point-of-views about variables and therefore also reach to a better results. Even without any public participation transparency of risk assessments is increased compared to old fashioned risk assessments where only the results are published.

Technical solutions

ORA method sets few challenges to software requirements. We needed to have a flexible system which enables mass cooperation and we also needed advanced computational capabilities with Monte Carlo analysis features. Currently we are building up a web-based system called Opasnet (Open Assessor's Network). Opasnet will contain guidance how to apply open assessment method in practice and will also provide a free platform for implementing open assessments.

We chose Mediawiki as main software for Opasnet because it is widely used and it has good list of different extensions available. In ORA method Mediawiki site is used to describe variables, cases and data as well it enables mass collaboration.

Mediawiki is not designed for mathematical modelling so we needed another software for that purpose. We chose Lumina's Analytica which is a visual tool for creating, analyzing, and communicating decision models including Monte Carlo analysis.

• Result database
  • php/mysql
  • apache/linux
• Picture of system architecture

Challenges

• problems with publications

Future developments

• new server
• interface