Help:Structure of a Case Study

All cases share the same basic structure. Within each section, cases may incorporate additional subheadings. The organization information below is intended to generally describe how case may appear.

Case Organization

Summary

Each case has a short manual summary to explain the purpose and scope of the case, as well as the types of Analysis, Synthesis & Insights that are associated with it.

Case Description and Background Articles

Basic geographic and water information is collected in this section using semantic tools. Location (lat, lon), population, watershed area, climate, land use, and water use are captured within this section.

Background articles are pages that capture information about places, structures, and organizations that may be relevant to multiple cases. For example, a riparian may have multiple conflicts with different players regarding different resources. The basic information about the location, history, and structure of the riparian is important to multiple cases, and shouldn't need to be re-created each time a new case is started. The forms for creating and editing a case allow users to add new links to background articles.

Editing this section

The case study form has separate tabs for "Case Description" and "Background Articles"

Under the "Case Description" tab, check box and short answer format questions are used to help organize some of the basic characteristics of a case. Each of these questions adds a semantic property to the case that can assist when browsing or searching cases for similarities.

Under the "Background Articles" you can add new links to existing background articles or add titles for new background articles of different types. To add an article click the button labeled "add another [Article Type]." If the article exists, a link will be added. If the article does not exist, the system will add a new empty page for the article using the correct format and the title you just gave it.

Historic, Economic, and Political Framework

This section is used to compile relevant information about the history and prevailing conditions that influence a case.

Editing this section

This section provides an "free text" editor where you can enter any content. If you use headings, then they will be added automatically to the case's table of contents. You can add text, links, or multimedia files to this section.

Issues and Stakeholders

A conflict only exists when issues important to groups of stakeholders are seen as having different or conflicting roads to resolution. Because issues can vary in importance to different stakeholders and stakeholders can represent groups with very different views on the issues, cataloging each issue within a case and identifying the stakeholders for that issue are important. This section also provides semantic links regarding the variables involved (water quality, water quantity, ecosystem services, governance, assets, values and norms) and the types of stakeholders (such as governmental, corporate, etc).

Issues are the concerns of groups of stakeholders within the context of the water basin and the case study. Some issues may be extremely significant, and some may be peripheral to your particular perspective or framework. Each issue has a specific group of stakeholders. Stakeholders are organizations or powerful individuals who may have input into the process or may bear the results of management decisions in the water basin. The stakeholders for a given issue are those who have a primary concern in its outcome.

This section is to define the issues and the groups of stakeholders. Any significant analysis and interpretation of these players should be addressed in a relevant key question or ASI section.

Editing this section

This section includes a title for each issue that will automatically become a subheading in the case. A "free-text" area can be used to add more detail about the issue and specific stakeholders. The checkboxes are used to categorize the variables and stakeholder groups who are involved with the specific issue.

Analysis, Synthesis & Insight

These sections are linked essays or analysis pieces that address the entire case or a significant aspect of the case. These differ from all other pages in AquaPedia because each article can only be edited by the individual who created it. Administrators have the ability to edit these pages, but will only do so for minor grammatical changes or in the case of content that violates copyright policy, is non-topical (e.g. spam), or is offensively inflammatory without value. All other changes and edits will be coordinated with authors via the article's discussion page. All changes in these pages will be visible via the article's history tab.

Editing this section

This section provides an "free text" editor where you can enter any content. If you use headings, then they will be added automatically to the case's table of contents. You can add text, links, or multimedia files to this section. A new section can be added from a specific case study by clicking "add an ASI." An existing section can be edited (provided that your user account was the original author) from the "edit" tab visible when viewing the specific article.

Key Questions

A common question bank poses general questions regarding some "big questions" in research regarding water management conflicts. Each case should be able to provide insight into at least one of these questions. For a list of questions and instructions on how to nominate new questions to be added to the list, see the Key Questions help page. Answers to each question are semantically linked in the database, so all cases addressing a single question can be viewed together. While any one case may not be able to provide a universal answer to any of these questions, these cases can teach us something about aspects of these questions. A group of answers to a given question may provide insight to groups trying to solve water management problems that have similarities, or help point the way toward more universal solutions.

Editing this section

Select "add a new key question" to get a new, blank template. Select the question category and question title. Provide a short answer to the question in the text editor using only the relevant case as an answer. Each case may only address an aspect of the question. Focus only on what this individual case has to inform the answer to the question.

External Links

A special form allows external links to be added with a description. These might be relevant news articles, official websites of organizations involved in the case, or other online resources that relate to the case.

Editing this section

"Add external link" adds another link template. Provide a text title and website address (beginning with http://) for each site. Add a description of the link that expresses how it is relevant to the case.

Case Review

Information about case review can be read here: Information about Case Review