Each year, after the publication of the Global Integrity Report, we ask our field staff — some 274 researchers and journalists located around the world — what they thought about our online collaboration and methodology. This is what they said, unedited and anonymous.
Global Integrity is the field staff – they’re 95 percent of the people working on our projects, so it’s only fair to let them speak for the organization and see the responses of their peers.
For the most part, responses were positive (you can see them all below), though as always, there are things we could do better.
Requests we heard frequently:
* Keep the process on schedule.
* Better notifications around money transfers (This will be better next year).
* Better pay.
* Better PR around the release.
* More sector work and localization of indicators (Agree! We’re on it).
* More collaboration and cooperation across the field teams.
That last one is something I think about a lot — we use a double-blind peer review process, and collaborate online (the names are published afterwards). This is methodologically rigorous, but eliminates a lot of possibilities for spontaneous and creative growth. This is a lesson we’re taking into the Local Integrity Initiative and the Impact Challenge, where we will look for opportunities to build networks and facilitate collaboration during the process.
You can browse the full survey response below. Survey responses that could identify the author have been redacted for privacy.
Field Staff Survey 2008/2009 (XLS)
Reporters summary
Lead Researchers summary
Peer Reviewers summary
— Jonathan Eyler-Werve
Random Sample of Text Responses
I liked the methodology a lot. Logical, thorough, easily understandably.
I really trusted the local imput – global impact approach, it is a good process. Key fact is that staff members are young professionals working on a collaborative system rather than a vertical structure with complicated deadlines. And I LOVE the fact that your site is under a creative commons license.
It will be useful for GI to also give some kind of feedback to the overall performance of field staff just to serve as a guide for subsequent collaboration. For instance it should be possible to tell where staff fell short so that it will serve as a guide for each one subsequently- whether you made such mistakes or not.
Perhaps you should strengthen the discipline and sanction the crossing of deadlines, but encourage early bird submission. That is done by carrot and stick method. Those who submit their projects before deadline should be paid extra and earlier. Those who are late may have their fees reduced, at least symbolically.
Thank you all Global integrity staff
It is a great report but perhaps real life case studies would enrich it more
I suggest the expansion of the integrity indicators to capture genderized manifestations and impact of corruption such as a country’s policy and response to “body currency corruption” [ like trafficking in persons,sex for grades, illicit abortion etc]
I will recommend to release report through press conference in country. That will help get more publicity which at present the Transparency International enjoying.
It is nice to work with the Global Integrity. If we can extend this work as policy implication, it would be helpful to more us and also the country
“- A researcher needs in average 2 months to do evaluation. This should be guaranteed.
– To give more time to peer reviewers, it seemed to me that some reviewers had no much time to read everything thoroughly.”
I look foward to future cooperation
Good luck!
“It was great working with GI team!
Best wishes for new projects!”
You’re doing great work and I would specifically salute Nathaniel Heller, who proved is a commendable leader when it comes to global team work. Congratulations to the GI staff and all experts involved and I look forward to working with them again.
I think this work is excellent and I really have enjoyed collaborating with Global Integrity.
“None, except that you did a great job. Your report is very comprehensive, and the evaluation system is meticulous.
Congratulations and keep up the good work.”
I find the methodology really interesting and original. But when I read the report,
I found that the presentation could be more elaborated. Have you took in consideration a benchmarking and ranking on the international or the local level.
Probably that had pros and cons, but I thing that could be efficient specially on the regional level.
The methodology leaves room for lots of bias. The whole process is based on the intraspection of different elites and their interpretation of reality, but it does not account for the the populace.
The compensation for peer reviewers are not adequate.
Keep up the good work.
As to myself, I would feel more at ease if I could receive two wave of questions, that is, two sets in two different periods.
“My interaction with the project has been somewhat limited to South Asia, but in what i have seen and read so far in the report, I felt that Global Integrity does really good work on the Governments across the world. But there is little or no focus on the Corruption in Corporate Sector.
Given that most countries of the world are Capitalist Economies, I think we should have certain assessment of the corporate Sector too.”
An excellent initiative!
For my XXXXXXXXXX report, the second reviewer downplays XXXXXXXXXX situation. There is that ever-present trap in academia where some tend to over analyse, over-define and over-categorise issues to the point of making them incomprehensible. We need to be on guard against our feet leaving the ground and our heads becoming stuck into the clouds. The reviewer says ‘exaggeration’ is harmful. More damaging is downplaying a serious situation which he/she is doing. I will respond in more detail when time permits.
Looking at some of the final results of the assessment for the Philippines (particularly on the Office of the Ombudsman) gave me pause. I was intrigued by the reviewer’s scores, and wondered if h/she had in any way been involved with the OMB, given her seeming bias for an agency that is widely perceived in my country to be doing a dismal job. The reaction I got from the head of one of the major civil soc. organizations in my country was very similar to mine. More on this in a separate email.
Thanks for the experience.
Other than annual reports, GI should investigate individual sectors like health, elections,investment etc
This was my first time with Global Integrity. On the basis of the contract (both the content and the remuneration) I expected much less work. I think the description of the job should indicate that we need to find all kinds of references for each statement, so that researchers can judge in advance how much time they need to dedicate to the questionnaire. Estimated time to complete the report should be at least one manmonth.
GIS could become even more notorious if it will select anchor organizations, sharing with GIS the results, methodology and regularity of assessments in the future, thus providing genuine bridges in their countries of origin.
Well sill another expression of naive realism is the common assumption that the proliferation of NGOs is in and of itself an index of democratization. The assumption seems plausible as it is more obvious that democratic transition requires strengthening social institutions. Nevertheless, NGOs may be problematic in that, far from contributing to the strengthening of civil society, they can function as instruments for the consolidation of a technocratic elite within the sector.
“In future having revealed that more donors have agreed to finance GI activities, field staff remuneration could be improved too to motivate them at work.
Otherwise, I must admit that the efforts put up by GI team is very great.
I wish all of you a very nice time and pray that Almighty God may continue to bless each one of you in your daily busy errands. Congratulations GI team.
Although obvious efforts have been made to adapt the methodology and capture to what extent legislation is actually implemented, it feels like a certain bias still exists towards formal institutions. New EU members score much better than they deserve just as an effect of EU acquis adoption, although this remains to a large extent only on paper.
Good experience as a start and would like to be involved in other projects of this nature.
Please include Serbia in 2009 report. You will again have interesting material.
I was honored by this collaboration with GI and i wish to continue it in the close future.
There are sometimes problems when one receives contradictory responses from two experts, making it difficult to rank the score.
You need to invest heavily on media. TIB is all over, GI is not. A regional office or country-specific office is needed for branding
It’s very exciting to work with GI. This work is very important for the future
Good luck.
I look forward to further work with GI.
See the possibility to collaborate with Local stakeholders to train various groups including media and civil society on indicators being used by GI in assessing good governance and corruption. Also to print and disseminate hard copies of GI reports to be placed on libraries for others to read.
visibility issue should be considered as a primary objective and it will be useful to have at least regional presence of Global Integrity team. Press conference on Europe for example held in one of the countries etc. This will gove to the report more push as well as build public campaign around it and allow to involve more NGO’s in further processing the data. Also cooperation with human development report team will be useful.
I appreciate working with Global Integrity Initiative in the 2008 because i have improved my research ability and more importantly have updated my knowledge about political and economic development in my country of research. it is my wish that the annual release of Global Integrity report would apprehend the growing corruption and arrest its impact on the world’s poor.
It was a great experience working with your crew and look forward to another assignment.
all countries should figure in the indexing and listing. for instance, India was not graded this year and therefore our paper dropped the idea of doing a story on the report. we were all geared for it.
The conclusions are enlightening. It is very useful to be able to compare Uganda with other countries
I commend you on your efforts of championing integrity in governance. Indeed many of the problems of underdevelopment – increasing poverty, famine, disease, civil unrest, etc. stem from poor governance! Of course using the findings of GI’s report to advocate for change within Government, and to demand that it muster the political will to effect the resolutions is another issue. Notwithstanding, with efforts like yours at GI, the resolve to soldier on is strengthened. Keep up the good work!
I’ve recommended it to people from countries, you have not information from. That means I fully accept the idea and the performance of the project. I also use the analysis results in my education programs.
We believe Global Integrity has done a good job.
pleasure to collaborate
