Adding to a Case: An Illustrative Short Story
PREFACE
This hypothetical short story is being used to highlight one possible process for appending more variables (operons) and relationships (kineses) to an existing source case in COMPASS. The following is assumed:
1. The case to be appended is fairly sparse, particularly in relationships.
2. The person doing the appending (the “appender”) has little initial familiarity with the case.
3. The appender has just a very basic familiarity with the structure and processes in COMPASS.
4. The appender has a particular subject in mind, which likely has been addressed briefly in the case but may stand some supplementation.
We will take the “managing donations to charities by government” (http://compass1.pbwiki.com) for our example source case. This is one of two small illustrative cases for COMPASS. It has just 17 variables and only 16 relationships. Now suppose that you, the potential appender, feel you may have some expertise to contribute to certain aspects of this case. In particular, suppose your expertise lay in public organizational behavior during disasters (based loosely on actions taken during Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005). You use this expertise in a six step (0 to 5) process
STEP 0: GETTING FAMILIAR WITH THE “CREATE A NEW VARIABLE” PROCESS
Before starting, you become familiar with the general process for adding a variable, as seen in:
http://pagenome-compass.pbwiki.com/Create+a+New+Variable.
An initial template and illustration was found by clicking on the “Basic Template for a Variable” item in the case’s “SideBar” box).
STEP 1: GETTING BASIC FAMILIARITY WITH THE CASE
Just to get a basic feel for the nature of the case, you click “Show all pages” in the bottom middle part of any page (e.g., the FrontPage). This produces a list of page links (those with the ID codes for the variables are all in capital letters). You subsequently click various ones of these to see details on the respective variables. For example, you scrolled down the list and clicked on SCAPEGT , and this produced the page:
===============================================================
(SCAPEGT) Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
"Ex-Chief of FEMA Pins Blame Higher Up", The
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
(None Specified)
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
ABANOFF Official Feels "Abandoned"
Related Categories: Politics, Government
===============================================================
As another approach you do a search for left parentheses (the Identification Code for each variable is preceded by a left parenthesis). This action gives you an alphabetical list of variables (at least the first 100) with their short descriptions. So in this situation, SCAPEGT appears on the list along with its short description as:
(SCAPEGT) Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
A click on this link gives you the same page as above.
STEP 2: SEARCHING FOR KEY WORDS
Focusing now on your specific contribution, you do searches on, say, the words (stems) “gov” and “office”. The first produces 13 matches of interest, the second seven. The latter seems more of interest and contains the associated stem in two of the variable short descriptions:
(ABANOFF) Official Feels Abandoned
(SCAPEGT) Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
You have the expertise to add to the understanding of the forces surrounding SCAPEGT, so you now focus on that.
STEP 3: APPENDING INFLUENCING VARIABLES
One of the first processes you undertake is to append influencing variables (possibly strategies or external forces). Based on your experience and research, you feel that scapegoating in an emergency situation usually occurs when those people caught up in the emergency are quite naturally concerned about government’s ability to protect them.
So, as the first task in this step, you do a query to see if a variable of this general nature already is in the case. Hence you undertake searches using terms like “concern” and “protect”. As it turns out, there are no matches for either. The next task thus is to create a variable to represent the concept, as learned in STEP 0. The resultant product is a web page looking like:
===============================================================
(CONCERN) Concern: Government’s Ability to Protect
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
(None Specified)
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
(None Specified)
Related Categories: Government, Health/Safety
===============================================================
There are two more tasks at this point: add SCAPEGT to CONCERN’s influenced list and CONCERN to SCAPEGT’s influencing list, as shown in the two charts below:
===============================================================
(CONCERN) Concern: Government’s Ability to Protect
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
(None Specified)
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
SCAPEGT Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
Related Categories: Government, Health/Safety
===============================================================
===============================================================
(SCAPEGT) Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
"Ex-Chief of FEMA Pins Blame Higher Up", The
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
CONCERN Concern: Government’s Ability to Protect
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
ABANOFF Official Feels "Abandoned"
Related Categories: Politics, Government
===============================================================
You also select appropriate categories from the case ontology and assign them to the variable.
STEP 4: APPENDING INFLUENCED VARIABLES
Having determined and documented how at least one variable influences the scapegoating of a public official, you now turn to documenting the variables influenced by it (that is, by SCAPEGT). You see that SCAPEGT already has been seen by a previous appender as affecting the feeling by the official of being abandoned (ABANOFF). This reminds you that, in many of your experiences, scapegoating, particularly as played out in the media, pushes the official to refuse to be interviewed. So a possibly new impact variable (influenced by SCAPEGT) for this concept might be entered in the case.
Before this process is undertaken, however, you do a search using words like “media” and “interview” to see if a variable with the exact same or very similar description already is in the case. For example, no match comes up for “interview” but one comes up for “media”:
NEWACCT News Media Want Accounting for Spending
While this seems relevant as a possible influencing variable, it does not capture the desired essence of the concept in question, so you establish a new variable as:
===============================================================
(REFUSIN) Official Refuses to be Interviewed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
Appender experience with 10 other similar cases.
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
SCAPEGT Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Official feels that he/she has been blamed unjustly by the media and therefore does not want to deal with them anymore.
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
(None Entered)
Related Categories: Management, Politics
===============================================================
As part of this effort, you also have added the following:
1. A further description of the variable.
2. SCAPEGT on the influencing variable list.
3. A further description of the influencing relationship.
4. Related categories from the case ontology (classification).
You also have added REFUSIN to SCAPEGT’s influenced list.
The situation gets even more complicated, however. Your past research has told you that a refusal to be interviewed (REFUSIN) generally makes the official feel even more abandoned (ABANOFF). Hence that connection must be recorded in both the REFUSIN and ABANOFF variable descriptions. The whole set of influential changes therefore leaves REFUSIN and SCAPEGT looking like:
===============================================================
(REFUSIN) Official Refuses to be Interviewed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
Appender experience with 10 other similar cases.
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
SCAPEGT Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Official feels that he/she has been blamed unjustly by the media and therefore does not want to deal with them anymore.
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
ABANOFF Official feels Abandoned
Related Categories: Management, Politics
===============================================================
===============================================================
(SCAPEGT) Official Becomes Scapegoat for Gov Failure
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further Description, Definition, Examples, References:
"Ex-Chief of FEMA Pins Blame Higher Up", The
Variables (Operons) Directly Influencing This One:
CONCERN Concern: Government’s Ability to Protect
Further Description, Examples, References for Influencing Relationships (Kineses):
Variables (Operons) Directly Influenced by This One:
ABANOFF Official Feels "Abandoned"
REFUSIN Official Refuses to be Interviewed
Related Categories: Politics, Government
===============================================================
STEP 5: CONTINUE ADDING
You continue to add further, as desired, to the case. For example, you add one or more variables depicting what strategies were undertaken by various public agencies and administrators to deal with alleviating citizen concerns during an emergency.
POSTFACE
The search procedures described above were all within the same source case wiki as the one being appended. Alternately, searches can be made of other cases or the world at large (e.g., with Google). For the former, there are several possible approaches Each starts with going to the main COMPASS wiki (http://pagenome-compass.pbwiki.com):
1. Go to the list of cases. Peruse to see which one may be of possible interest. Then link to that case and follow Steps 1 to 5 as above.
2. Select “Show all pages”. The case summary pages will be all in capital letters. Peruse to see which one may be of possible interest. Then link to that case and follow Steps 1 to 5 as above.
3. Do a search on “[“. This will result in the list of cases. Peruse to see which one may be of possible interest. Then link to that case and follow Steps 1 to 5 as above.
4. Do a search on a category in the PA Genome Ontology (classification) list (http://pagenome-compass.pbwiki.com/PA+Genome+Ontology). This may or may not lead to a match with one case (or more). If it does, peruse to see which case may be of possible interest. Then link to that case and follow Steps 1 to 5 as above.
As an example, suppose you are interested in the public informational aspects of your case. Following search procedure alternative 4 immediately above, you go to the main COMPASS wiki and pick the word “information” from the PA Ontology
You subsequently do a search on that word, which results in two case “hits”.
FREEDOM OF GOVERNMENT INFO CASE
NEW IT CITY CASE
The first one seems to have the most promise, so you link to it. At this point, you follow Steps 1 to 5 in the main text above. One result of that is the recognition of the variable:
INFEMBR Information Might Embarrass Administration
as a good candidate for an influencing force on the scapegoating of the official (SCAPEGT).
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