There are a number of factors that limit the reliability of organizations as sources of information about their own services:
Organizations might not designate the responsibility for managing all of this information to any single person. A single organization might offer many services through various programs at multiple locations. And these are often stressed environments with limited technical capacity and overburdened staff. It can be hard for organizations to keep track of all of their own services!
Organizations sometimes submit information about services that is vague or not entirely accurate. When updating their own records, organizations’ staff sometimes submit information that is composed to promote their organization in general, yet not precisely describe the information about services that is needed. This tends to yield information that is not useful to someone who is looking for a service.
Organizations are asked to update their information so many times in so many different community resource directories that they get confused or frustrated.
Keeping this information up to date just isn’t a high priority when organizations already have more clients coming through its doors than they can handle.
As a result, we assume that organizations’ self-reported updates should be considered one input among many in the effort to produce and maintain accurate data about services.
Posted in: Overview, Strategic Questions