Use
Good data is a means to an end, not an end in itself. So how can you put it to work to improve procurement? This section offers a host of resources to get you started finding, evaluating and analyzing open contracting data in real-world situations to help you set and measure your open contracting reform goals.
BEGINApply open contracting data to real-world situations
The resources in this section help guide you through applying open contracting data to real-world scenarios such as measuring procurement performance, red flags to track malfeasance or mistakes by authorities, and quality control of information.
This guide compiles a list of procurement indicators related to market opportunity, internal efficiency, value for money, public integrity and service delivery, that can be calculated using OCDS data.
This document details a list of common indicators for an initial diagnosis of the performance of a procurement market using public procurement data, providing key information on different aspects of the contracting process. The main indicators proposed describe the level of competition and the internal efficiency of the processes, and signal potential risks and areas of improvement.
Our red flags guide provides a methodology to calculate a list of risk indicators that identify corruption risks throughout the procurement process from planning to implementation, mapped to the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS).
The guide includes: a definition of red flags and OCP’s approach to supporting partners to calculate procurement risks; what data is most useful to calculate red flags; step-by-step guide on how to implement red flags in practice; and a revisited list of 73 red flags indicators in public procurement, drawn from academic literature, international best practice and existing red flags implementations. The list includes definitions, detailed formulas to calculate red flags using standardized data and examples.
Explore open contracting data using common tools
The first step in using data that has been published according to the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is to learn how to access and manipulate OCDS data. This section introduces a variety of tools that can help you get started using OCDS data using your preferred formats and methods.
The Data Registry helps you find and download public procurement datasets that are available in the OCDS format.
In this learning lab, work through a hands-on exercise where you will: get a bulk spreadsheet OCDS dataset from a publisher, explore the dataset using Google Sheets, and generate insights from the OCDS datasets using Google Sheets features.
Analyze, visualize, and interpret contracting data
Once you know how to access and explore OCDS data, let’s put it to work from spreadsheets to R and many things in between, this section covers popular tools and methods to start turning your data into insights you can act on.
Excel is one of the most common spreadsheet packages: most people have at least some experience using it. The goal of this lab is to show you how to use this widespread tool to get insight into contracting data that is published using OCDS in spreadsheet formats.
This post in our technical series explores a particular trend around the use and analysis of OCDS data, along with our reflections from analyzing OCDS data published by the UK’s Crown Commercial Service (CCS).
The goal of this manual is to provide the basic foundations needed to analyze and visualize Open Contracting data using the R programming language to people that might be interested in pursuing this challenging but worthy endeavor. A basic understanding of computer programming will come in handy when reading this document; however, enough guidance is provided to ensure that less-tech-savvy readers can also follow along.
This guide has been created to increase the use and impact of data publication, import OCDS and analyze them visually and intuitively. Although all the examples are based on the Mexican case, we provide you with instructions to import any dataset that meets OCDS standard.
