Indicator Engine
How does Indicator Engine work?
Indicator Engine hosts a continually growing bank of (hundreds of) indicators across various social issue areas, including climate change, homelessness, poverty, youth, disability, mental health, Indigenous rights, and women’s rights.
These indicators, which have been vetted and ranked for their quality, are published for use on the platform.
1. Outcome recommendations
The first step of building a survey with indicators from our databank is clarifying which social outcomes your program aims to achieve. Users will be prompted to describe their program aim, and Indicator Engine will then recommend relative social outcomes that can be measured. The user can modify these automated recommendations as needed.
2. Survey building methods
Depending on organisational needs, users can choose one of the following three methods to build their survey:
- Smart Assistant: Have your survey automatically built using our suggested indicators based on a program’s outcomes
- Use a Framework: Align to best-practice using published sector frameworks or internal organisational frameworks to guide the creation of their survey
- Manual: Create your survey from scratch by manually choosing indicators from our database (Manual)
3. PIPLA and the Indicators
The user is then supported to build their survey using indicators from our indicator databank, which have been vetted for their quality and practical use for the sector, by the Amplify Online team.
This means that for-purpose organisations can have confidence in the suitability of the indicators they are using for their quantitative measurement with minimal time and money spent, enabling a greater allocation of efforts towards the programs and people they are working to serve.
Every indicator published on Amplify Online has been assessed against CSI-developed psychometric methodology, the PIPLA criteria.
Using existing research, PIPLA checks for:
- Psychometric quality: That the indicator measures what we think it measures in a valid and reliable way
- Inclusive design: That the indicator was developed in consultation with relevant groups (not just researchers)
- Population data: That the indicator collects data that can be benchmarked to population, program and geographical data
- Length: That the indicator is brief and so minimises the burden on participants
- Affordability: That the indicator is affordable for not-for-profit organisations
4. Survey distribution methods
Amplify Online currently supports three survey distribution methods:
- Email distribution: This sends out a unique email link to the respondent’s email address
- Kiosk distribution: For use in a one-to-one, or front office setting where the respondent completes the survey on a device owned by the organisation. This is recommended for respondents who do not have a reliable device or appropriate and safe location to complete the survey themselves, or who benefit from assistance and support from your team while completing the survey
- Offline mode: Looks exactly like kiosk mode, except the device you complete the survey from can go “offline” in a remote area or any location without Internet connectivity. This is a great benefit to organisations providing services in remote locations, and disaster response services
Where can I get more information about Indicator Engine?
Our Construction Manual provides the detail of Indicator Engine and the processes behind the platform. We have also published an Indicator Engine User Manual, which is currently only available to registered users. Please email us for more info .
We also host weekly drop-in training sessions for registered users, showcasing a different functionality of the platform each week. These are an informal opportunity for users to ask questions directly from the Amplify Online team.
We encourage you to subscribe to the Amplify Social Impact mailing list to be amongst the first to hear of future resources, live demos, Q+As and other Amplify news.