Development of the Parline database

Background

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is the world's organization of parliaments. It was founded in 1889 as the first multilateral political organization, encouraging cooperation and dialogue between all nations. Today, the IPU’s membership comprises approximately nearly all of the world's national parliaments. It promotes democracy, helps parliaments to become stronger, younger, gender-balanced, and more diverse. It also defends the human rights of parliamentarians. Twice a year, the IPU convenes over 1500 delegates and MPs in a world assembly, bringing a parliamentary dimension to the work of the United Nations and the implementation of the 2030 global goals.

IPU’s Parline database on national parliaments data.ipu.org was redeveloped recently with the current version launched in September 2018. At the time many changes were made, including moving to the Drupal platform, revising the scope of the database contents and overhauling the public user interface. Meanwhile, the IPU web site www.ipu.org was rebuilt in 2017 and further linkages between the web site and Parline were established in September 2019.

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to develop additional features for Parline and to make adjustments to some of the existing features.

Parline is officially in "beta" phase. The development of the additional features described in this RFP will complete the initial development and bring an end to the beta phase.

A separate RFP will be issued for the ongoing maintenance of the data.ipu.org and www.ipu.org platforms.

Overview

Parline objectives

Parline is the IPU’s open data platform on national parliaments. It allows users to consult and compare data on national parliaments including information on structures, working methods, gender parity, women’s caucuses, youth and MPs’ human rights.

Parline covers 272 parliamentary chambers in 193 countries. The database comprises more than 500 fields. Some of the data goes back several years allowing users to see evolutions and trends over time.

Generally, the information on the platform is provided to IPU by national parliaments. It is updated regularly to take into account any changes that result from elections. The data covers a wide range of themes; for example, the number of chambers, the number of women MPs, the number of laws initiated by parliament and the average age of MPs.

New Parline allows users not only to find information on national parliaments but also to compare the data for all parliaments or a particular region. Users can reuse this data through an API and download data in different formats, including charts and maps, and share it according to the Terms of Use.

Audiences

The main audiences of Parline are the staff of national parliaments (library and research services, international departments, procedural services etc), parliamentary development practitioners and researchers working on parliaments (scholars, students, etc). Secondary audiences include international organizations (UN agencies and civil society) as well as the media.

Technical considerations

The Parline database data.ipu.org is built using Drupal 7.59 and is hosted on Platform.sh.

The IPU web site www.ipu.org is built on Drupal 8 and is also hosted on Platform.sh.

The two platforms are managed separately. More interactions between the two sites should be explored.

Languages

Parline is published in the official languages of the IPU, namely English and French. All developments should function equally in both languages.

Scope of work

The work has been grouped into 9 work packages. These work packages are described in Annex 1. For the most part, the work packages can be developed and delivered independently. The principal interactions and dependencies between work packages are identified in Annex 1.

List of work packages

RFP-00: Create a mechanism to calculate, view and export global and regional averages of women in parliament

RFP-01: Create pages to view certain fields (Speakers, elections…)

RFP-02: Create a mechanism to export certain fields

RFP-03: Reorganize age fields on and back and front end and migrate age data

RFP-04: Create fields and views for SDG 16 data

RFP-05: Adjust organization of Parliamentary bodies (specialized bodies and women’s caucuses)

RFP-06: Adjust the display of time series on country and comparative pages

RFP-07: Create a new view of “all data on a chamber” that can be printed and exported

RFP-08: Create additional parliamentary bodies on youth

Expected overall deliverables

Under the overall guidance and supervision of the IPU’s Programme Manager for Parliamentary Standards and Knowledge, and working closely with the IPU’s Research and Database Officer, the Parline Data Officer and other stakeholders, the supplier will be responsible for the specific deliverables as described in Annex 1 as well as the following:

• Discovery
• Project management
• Production and testing
• Final delivery.

All assets and project files are the sole and exclusive property of the IPU. Project

Timeline

• Proposals should be submitted no later than: 27 October 2019
• Proposals will be evaluated immediately thereafter and the supplier chosen by 8 November 2019.
• Discovery: to end of November 2019 • Development and testing: December 2019 to February 2020
• Target date for completion: 15 March 2020

Criteria for selection

The IPU will evaluate each proposal and may contact the top proposals for follow-up questions or face-to-face meeting.

The IPU will choose the supplier based on the following criteria:

• Experience of the company
• Technical expertise and flexibility to accommodate the proposed timeline
• Quality of portfolio / past work
• Cost proposal

Annex 1. Description of the work packages

RFP-00: Create a mechanism to calculate, view and export global and regional averages of women in parliament

The IPU has historically collected and published data on the number of women in parliament. IPU has a dataset that goes back to 1945 and is updated on a daily basis. The data is currently available on Parline in three ways:

• In the individual Country pages (example)
• In the Comparative pages (example)
• In the monthly ranking of women in parliament (example)

The task is to create a new mechanism to give users access to data on women in parliament in the form of global and regional averages, through a dedicated page on Parline. The page will function in a similar way to the page with the monthly ranking of women in parliament.

Currently the IPU publishes the global and regional averages in HTML pages on its former web site (example). This will be replaced by the new page on Parline.

The global and regional averages should be calculated using the formula provided by the IPU. The data on the number of women will be drawn from existing fields in the database.

The global and regional averages will be published on a monthly basis. By default the page will display the latest available data. A timestamp should display when the ranking was published/updated.

Users should be able to

• filter data by criteria such as date
• export data in XLS and CSV
• view data on a graph and in a table
• view progress in the averages over time

The data should take into account the existing characteristics of the monthly ranking of women in parliaments on Parline, notably:

Publish global and regional averages on a monthly basis

Only publish the averages when a full set of data is available, or when the Parline admin forces publication by excluding a chamber that is missing data.

• Exclude Suspended chambers from the averages
• Take into account changes over time in parliamentary structure
• Admin can display notes on the averages (general notes for all averages and specific notes for a certain month)

The data should be available to third parties via the Parline API.

RFP-01: Create pages to view certain fields (Speakers, elections…)

The task is to create standalone pages on Parline that display a table containing certain fields from the database. Essentially, these pages are lists of items from the database, with links back to the relevant pages.

Standalone pages should be created for the following themes:

• Speaker of parliament/chamber (Fields to be displayed in the table include: Country; chamber; name; sex; year of birth; etc)
• Secretary General of parliament/chamber (Country; chamber; name; sex; etc)
• Date of most recent election • Date of next scheduled election
• Parliamentary bodies (Specialized bodies, Caucuses)

Users should be able to

• filter data by criteria such as date, region, parliament structure, etc
• sort the table • export data in XLS and CSV
• be alerted when the data changes (via an RSS feed or other solution)

Building on RFP-00 and RFP-01, create a page that lists Women Speakers of parliament, incorporating the data elements found in this page: http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/speakers.htm.

RFP-02: Create a mechanism to export certain fields

Currently, users are able to export data from the Comparative pages. The task is to extend the possibilities for export, notably so that users are able to:

• Export search results
• Select specific fields to export: o Up to five fields can be selected
  —The country and region can be selected
  —The user can specify the time period for the export
• Export a group (or bundle) of related fields
  —Contact details for all parliaments o All fields in Parliamentary bodies (filter by body)
  —All fields in Election results
  —All fields for one chamber

Users should be able to export the data in XLS and CSV.

This feature is based on the “Modules” and “Toolbox” feature in the former version of Parline.

RFP-03: Reorganize age fields on and back and front end and migrate age data

Parline contains a set of fields for the number of parliamentarians within a certain age range (21-30, 31-40 etc). This data is stored in the back end in the “Chamber Time Series”. It is available on the front end via the Country pages (Basic information and Data on Youth); Comparative pages and Search.

The current structure of the data on the back and front ends is not satisfactory. A number of changes are required.

In addition to the existing data, a new dataset needs to be migrated into the database, with age data for around 50 chambers.

The tasks include:

• In the back end, move this set of fields from the “Chamber Time Series” to the “Elections” content type.
• Migrate the data already in the Chamber Time Series to the appropriate Election node
• Migrate the additional data from XLS to the appropriate Election node
• Modify how this data is displayed on the front end, to reflect these changes and to make improvements to the existing organization of the data.

RFP-04: Create fields and views for SDG 16 data

The IPU is custodian of the Sustainable Development Goals indicator 16.7.1(a) on the proportion of decision-making positions in parliament by sex and by age. The indicator contains multiple components, and is described in detail in the methodology. Much of the data required for the indicator is already in Parline.

The task is to enable users to view and export data for the indicator. To achieve this, it will be necessary to:

• Add some new fields to Parline
• Calculate the data as per the indicator methodology
• Create one or more standalone pages for the different components of the indicator
  —Present data as tables and graphs
  —Make data available for export in XLS and CSV, and via the API

This task will draw upon the features developed in RFP-01 and RFP-02, and is dependent on the reorganization of fields on age data foreseen in RFP-03.

RFP-05: Adjust organization of Parliamentary bodies (specialized bodies and caucuses)

Two content types have been created for different “Parliamentary bodies”:

• Women’s caucuses (created in 2017)
• Specialized bodies (created in July 2018). There are currently two instances of Specialized bodies in Parline:
  —Human rights
  —Gender equality

Women’s caucuses are accessible to users through the Country pages and Search. They are currently not accessible through the Comparative pages.

Specialized bodies are accessible through the Country pages. They are currently not accessible through Comparative pages or Search.

The task is to make a number of improvements to the “Parliamentary bodies”. The functioning should, to the extent possible, be harmonized so that there is a standard way of working with these bodies in the back end, and standard access to the data on these bodies in the front end.

The exact scope of the task is to be defined during discovery. It is likely to involve:

• Modifying the structure of the Women’s caucuses Content Type
• Ensuring that the data on Women’ caucuses currently in Parline is available in the revised structure
• Improving the admin tools for work on the Parliamentary bodies
• Providing users with access to data to the Parliamentary bodies through the Comparative pages and Search
• Providing users with a list of Parliamentary bodies, and tools to export data from Parliamentary bodies

This task will draw upon the features developed in RFP-01 and RFP-02.

See also the features requested in RFP-09 on parliamentary bodies on youth.

RFP-06: Create a new view of “all data on a chamber” that can be printed and exported

A number of users have requested the possibility to “view all data on a chamber on one page”, and to be able to print this page. The task is to create this feature. The layout of the “print view” should be optimized for printing.

RFP-07: Adjust the display of time series on country and comparative pages

Historical data for selected fields is saved in Parline as “Time Series”. The front end is set up to display the time series for the current year. Data from earlier Time Series is available to users via a pop-up box. However, in practice, data for many of the fields is not available for the current year. The default display is therefore “Not available” in the Country pages, or an empty map in the Comparative pages.

The task is to propose and implement a solution to this problem. The preferred outcome would be to display the most recently available data for Time Series fields, with an indication of the year for which it is relevant (example: 2017).

RFP-08: Create additional parliamentary bodies on youth

After the model for the Parliamentary bodies (specialized bodies on Human rights and Gender equality) and caucuses (Women’s caucuses) has been refined in RFP-05

• Create new instances in Parline for:
• Specialized bodies on Youth (based on the model of the specialized bodies on Human rights and Gender equality)

Youth caucuses (based on the refined model of the Women’s caucuses)

Make the corresponding changes on the front and back end.