List research
=============

Populating new entries
----------------------

For list requests, the research team should seek to identify a potential source of organization identifiers.

The research process may involve:

* Online desk research;
* Consultation with the wider standards community;
* Consultation with local experts;

Once you have identified a good candidate list to meet a particular need, assign it a prefix as detailed below, and then fill in the detailed :doc:`metadata <metadata>`.

Validating an existing entry
----------------------------

For stub entries or proposals with incomplete information, researcher sshould: 

1. **Check the list title** - and make sure it follows the :doc:`rules for multilingual titles <metadata>`

2. **Write a clear description of the identifier list** describing the way in which organisations end up on the list. This should be 1 - 2 paragraphs maximum. You may use content quoted from the registers own website, or wikipedia pages.

.. container:: text-bold

    3. Fill in the list :doc:`metadata <metadata>`

Research sources
----------------

When carrying out research the following resources may be useful. All researchers are encouraged to familiarise themselves with these resources.

Useful websites
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* **Investigative dashboard** - https://investigativedashboard.org/databases/topics/business list of company registers

* **Wikipedia.** Primary and secondary identifier lists are usually notable enough to have a Wikipedia page, at least in the language of the country concerned. For official registers - look for information about the legislation that created the register in order to understand the organisation types it covers. See in particular `List_of_company_registers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_registers>`_ and `Types_of_business_entity <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_business_entity>`_

* The `World Bank Doing Business <http://www.doingbusiness.org/>`_ country profile give detailed information on company registration processes - and can provide useful hints as to the official company register and identifiers in a country.

* `OpenCorporates Open Company Index <http://registries.opencorporates.com/>`_

* `European Commission list of Business registers in Member States <https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_business_registers_in_member_states-106-en.do>`_

* `Wiki Procedure <https://www.wikiprocedure.com>`_

* `Open Corporates policy paper on handling company number problems <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cQ626bFP-66LtXX4oJ_nEoyDjBtGtJ8RITbdK6W6nOk/edit>`_


Existing use
~~~~~~~~~~~~

For codes taken from the IATI Codelist, you can search for records that currently use this code via OIPA.

For example, the following query returns a list of activities (in JSON format) with reporting or participating organisation identifiers that start with ‘ET-MFA’

https://oipa.nl/api/activities/?format=json&q_fields=reporting_org,participating_org&q_lookup=startswith&q=ET-MFA

Checking each of the linked activities can give an indication of the kinds of identifier in use.

Current usage in IATI is no guarantee of a correct identifier, but, it can give clues as to the kinds of identifiers you are looking for, and can help validate organisation list information.