1. 1
Proposed criteria to identify primary databases on UNCCD Best Practices
Contents
Database ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Content-wide criteria .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Scope of the database ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Management of record property rights .................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Source of data and metadata management ........................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Conceptual Integrity (data validation) .................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Size of the database ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 4
Geographical coverage ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
System-wide criteria ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Runtime requirements ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Functionality ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Performance ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Security ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Access to authorized users for insertion and uploading of data about best practices ........................................................................................................... 8
Availability and Reliability of the system ................................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Usability, training and support ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Interoperability ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Non-Runtime requirements ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Modifiability ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Portability ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 12
Integrability .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
Institutional capacity ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 14

2. 2
General criteria ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Compatible mission .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14
Legal mandate ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Legal personality ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Governance .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15
Institutional capacity ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15
Networks .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Reliability of the hosting provider ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 16
Pertinence of the online target audience ............................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Data access policy ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 17
Annex: scale of relevance ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 18

3. 3
Database
Content-wide criteria
Priority
(1-5)
Scope of the database
The hosting database of best practices is relevant to thematic topics of UNCCD best practices1
.
Indicators:
- Scope of the database
Values: Yes (1 to 7):
- Sustainable land management (SLM) technologies, including adaptation;
- Capacity-building and awareness-raising;
- Desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD), and SLM monitoring and assessment/research;
- Knowledge management and decision support;
- The policy, legislative and institutional framework;
- Financing and resource mobilization;
- Participation, collaboration and networking.
Reference values: one theme; > 3 themes; > 7 themes.
5
Management of record property rights
The hosting database of best practices is able to manage property rights related to the technology, at record level like description of the
property rights, usage of the content of the record, etc.
Indicators:
- Management of property rights
Values: Yes/No
Reference values: Yes
5
Source of data and metadata management
The source of information stored in the database is clearly identified. Relevant Metadata is provided.
5
1
As contained in document ICCD/COP/(9)/18/Add.1 and decision 13/COP.9, annex V.

4. 4
Indicators:
- Name and contact details of the individual/institution, as well as its affiliation, and data of published material are indicated for each
record.
- Metadata is available (Time and date of creation; creator or author of data; location on a computer network where the data was
created; standards used)
Values: Yes/No
Reference values: 2 Yes
Conceptual Integrity (data validation)
The database is a repository of structured and validated data on best practices.
Indicators:
- Procedures and mechanisms are in place, either of institutional or scientific nature, to validate data and information recorded in the
database and published through web platforms.
Values:
- Scientific peer review;
- Institutional/scientific mechanisms established at the source of information;
- Internal validation protocols.
Reference values: Yes at least for one of the three aforementioned values.
5
Size of the database
The web site hosting best practice database is hosting a considerable amount of records related to best practices.
Indicators:
- Range of number of records
Values:
- <300
- 301-500
- ≥501
Reference values: >500
3
Geographical coverage
The best practices database collects data on regions that are relevant for UNCCD.
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5. 5
Indicators:
- Geographical coverage.
Values:
- Number of Regional Implementation Annexes2
covered by information in the database.
Reference values: Global (5 regions covered), Partial (4 out of 5 Regions covered, 3 out of 5 Regions covered).
System-wide criteria
Runtime requirements
Priority
(1-5)
Functionality
Set of functionalities of the infrastructure of the database to support insertion, modification, and publishing of the best practices using any
categories required by the Governing Body.
Indicators:
- Functional scalability indicators:
- scalability of the database
- scalability of the application
Description: At system level, the scalability is the ability to enhance the system by adding new functionality at minimal effort. New categories
associated to best practices records require the database to be normalized and new tables of the categories should be associated to the best
practice record related to UNCCD context only. Scalability is therefore required at database level (scale out or scale up of the tables) and at
application level to support insertion, modification and publishing of the records. At this stage, the indicator will measure only the number of
tables of the DBMS and/or the number of databases required to implement the connection of the 7 best practices themes to the database of
best practices.
Values:
- Scalability of the database:
- scale horizontally (scale out): number of tables attached to the table of best practices table in the same DBMS
- Scale vertically (scale up): number of databases attached to the best practices database
5
2
List of the Regions at http://www.unccd.int/en/regional-access/Pages/default.aspx

6. 6
Possible values:
- Scale out: an integer between 0 and 100
- Scale up: an integer between 0 and 100
Reference values:
- Scale out: > 2
- Scale up: = 0
Explanation: the hosting provider will merge existing best practices records with UNCCD records. The themes associated to UNCCD
records can be implemented in the DBMS as additional tables linked to the table of best practices or can be stored in a separate
database. In the latter, the costs of accessing records dispersed in different databases will be higher. The first case considers a
normalized database where a primary key of the best practice records table can be associated to one theme in a specific separate table.
- Scalability of the application:
- Level of coupling for these web interfaces:
- Search mask
- Detailed mask
- Modification mask
Possible values:
- Loose coupling: categories like themes will be managed in existing web interfaces
- Tight coupling: categories will be managed in separate web interfaces, separately developed and maintained.
Reference values:
- Loose coupling
Explanation: Coupling refers to the ways in which and degrees to which one part of the system relies on the details of another part.
The tighter the coupling, the more changes in one part of the system will ripple throughout the system. With loose coupling, the
interfaces between subsystems are well defined and restricted. What lies beyond those interfaces can change without any changes
needed in the client sub systems. For UNCCD, it is required that the web interfaces used to display, collect, modify best practices
records will support categories like the Themes and any future categorization required by the Governing Body with low impact on
existing web interfaces and low costs of development and maintenance.

7. 7
Performance
Excellent response time, utilization, and throughput behavior of the database supporting up to 200 concurrent users is guarantee.
Indicators:
- Response time of the web application
Definition: Response time, or Responsiveness, is the response of the web application to user input, from the moment the user submits
the request for a page to the moment where the page is fully rendered in the browser. For the evaluation, it is required the response
time of the server when the client requires all records from the table of best practices, using the main search mask of the web
application. Parameters of the request are passed in GET. The client is the web site: http://www.websitepulse.com/help/tools.php
Example: http://mywebsite.com/query.aspx?query=all
Values:
- 1-4 seconds
- 4-8 seconds
- >8 seconds
Reference values: 1-4 seconds
Explanation: Response time includes response time of the server, response time of the DBMS, latency of the network. To perform the test, the
monitoring agent resolves the domain name, connects to the test website and downloads the complete HTML content. The total response time
shows how long it takes for your website to download.
3

8. 8
Security
The infrastructure implements security and information-sharing policies for the maintenance of the database and to prevent unauthorized
attempts at usage or behavior modification, while still providing service to legitimate users.
Web application guarantees safe input processes: public masks are designed to avoid spamming, SQL-injection and other attempts to access raw
data of the database.
Indicators:
- Level of security
Definition: the security policy document defines standards for security configuration for servers and networks inside the organization's
production network. An internal security policy expert analyzes each policy and will provide three level of security implemented.
Values:
- Low: the infrastructure is vulnerable to external attack. No firewall installed. No proxy installed.
- Medium: sufficient security is guaranteed
- High: high-level security is provided with firewall, proxies, separation of production server and development server, daily backup of
data, etc.
Reference values: High
5
Access to authorized users for insertion and uploading of data about best practices
The system allows registered users to independently insert and manage data of best practices records using login and encrypted password.
Indicators:
- Management of login and password
Values: Yes/No
Reference values: Yes
5