APPLICATION OF A COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION - STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

The Integrated Scientific Information System (ISIS) is currently distributed and used by UNESCO. ISIS permits input of both alphanumeric and numeric information by batch or on-line, interactive modes. The stored information is kept in addressed master files which may also be indexed by selected keywords. The retrieved information can be displayed on remote terminals or formatted as indexes or catalogs on high-speed printers. Once installed these programs can be used for the storage and retrieval of almost any kind of information. This system could be helpful in the organization and evaluation of many kinds of development data. Several hundred soil survey reports were characterized by the extraction and storage of relevant data on checklists specially compiled for the purpose. Information from the checklist was then input into the ISIS system for storage and retrieval. ISIS could be particularly useful to development funding agencies such as USAID and World Bank which have large amounts of materials on completed projects. The system would allow follow-up or evaluation studies to be completed easily on finished projects. The success or failure of project approaches or strategies could be more easily evaluated. It would also help avoid repetition or overlap of studies in a given geographic area. The system could also be used to compile relevant reference documents. Several versions of ISIS is in existence. The gross characteristics are similar and resemble those described in this paper.