Gathered in 61 countries in part using our fieldwork platform Indaba, we were excited to see the World Wide Web Foundation’s (WWWF) Web Index launch publicly on September 5. The Web Index ranks 61 countries across seven categories assessing the progress and social utility of the World Wide Web on countries and their citizens. 

Combining over 80 indicators to evaluate access, affordability, institutional and policy environment and social and economic utility, the Index will provide an evidence-based tool for national and regional advocacy, intervention, and strategy to strengthen the Web.  While we aren’t experts on WWWF’s data, we can provide insight into what it takes to launch and run a project of this magnitude on Indaba. 

We were honored when WWWF approached us in January 2012 about using Indaba to gather the data for their index. Soon after, we hit the ground running at full speed. We worked closely with WWWF and the team of analysts from Oxford Economics through an iterative process to help them define the workflows and rules that would eventually govern the collection of the data they sought in each country. We helped them think through how to develop their indicators and score choices as well. From there our lean team worked as quickly as possible to build, test and deploy the project, which involved teams of three contributors working in the 61 countries assessed through multiple quality control steps. When it came time to publish, WWWF developers simply extracted their data directly from Indaba — which could be done by either downloading the data in spreadsheet format or by directly extracting the data via the Indaba API — and cleaned it up for the website you can now surf.

Always eager to take on a challenge, we look forward to future partnerships with WWWF and welcome the opportunity to support other organizations’ work on the Indaba platform. If you're interested in using Indaba, you can learn more here and reach us at info@globalintegrity.org.

— Carrie Golden and Monika Shepard