Tool re-use in open contracting: A Primer

For organizations interested in re-using an open contracting tool, this includes an introduction to some available tools, a step-by-step guide to help organizations formalize exactly what they need, and a detailed look at how to evaluate whether a tool is the right fit, and whether the right conditions are in place for its successful re-use.

More than a dozen open-source tools now exist for publishing, analyzing, visualizing and working with government procurement data published according to the OCDS.

In theory, others can reuse these in new and different contexts, instead of having to build new tools from scratch. But, in reality, this doesn’t happen as much as you might expect.

To help organizations overcome the challenges to re-use, we offer:

• Tool re-use in open contracting: A Primer. For organizations interested in re-using an open contracting tool, this includes an introduction to some available tools, a step-by-step guide to help organizations formalize exactly what they need, and a detailed look at how to evaluate whether a tool is the right fit, and whether the right conditions are in place for its successful re-use.
• Evaluation Matrix: A matrix designed to accompany the evaluation framework introduced in the Primer.
• Guidance for tool authors and support providers: A set of suggestions for how tool authors and open contracting support providers can enable or support successful open contracting tool re-use.
• Key findings and research methodology: For those who want a quick look at what we did and what we found through the research that supports the above.

You can read more about this work in The Engine Room’s library entry and in OCP’s blog post.