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USF public-affairs students urge Ethics Commission to add ID numbers, smarter search and hyperlinks to lobbyist site
Summary
A University of San Francisco Master of Public Affairs team proposed assigning internal identification numbers to lobbyists and firms, adding predictive text and sorting, and linking data fields so the public can find all reports for a single entity, regardless of spelling variations. Commissioners welcomed the recommendations and asked staff to explore implementation.
Sebastian Khan, a graduate student in the University of San Francisco Master of Public Affairs program, presented a multi-student analysis of the Ethics Commission website on Feb. 29 and urged the commission to adopt three immediate fixes to improve searchability and standardization.
The students proposed assigning a designated identification number (DIN) to every lobbyist, firm and reporting entity so all reports would be tied to one canonical identifier regardless of how a name is spelled. "By implementing a DIN system, it would eliminate the need for the mapping reported name section that currently catches errors on the website," Bridget Mahoney said during the presentation, arguing the DIN would “eliminate…
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