About Metrics

WikiRate organizes data about companies using Metrics.  A WikiRate metric is a formal question about a Company that can have one answer for any given year.

Some metric answers are researched, and their values and source citations are entered directly. Other answers are dynamically calculated from other answers.

Researched Metric Types

• Standard. Answers to standard research metrics are directly researched and entered either individually via research pages or in bulk by imports. All researched answers must cite a source, and answers can be verified (checked) by other users.  Add
• Relationship.These metrics describe the relationship between two companies.  Unlike standard metrics, these metrics can have compound answers, comprised of one “relationship answer” per relationship. Add

Calculated Metric Types

• Formula. Like all calculated metric types, formula metrics derive answers dynamically from the answers to other metrics. Formula metrics allow designers the flexibility to create formulae directly, while other calculated metric types have an interface for creating a specific type of formula. Add
• Score. A Score metric standardizes the answers of exactly one other metric to a 0-10 scale. A score’s name is formed by adding the name of the scorer (user, company or research group) to the end of the scored metric. Add
• WikiRating.. A WikiRating is a 0-10 rating computed as a weighted average of other 0-10 answers. To create a WikiRating, a number of Score metrics are selected and assigned weightings. Add
• Descendant. A descendant metric inherits answers from one or more ancestor metrics. Descendant metrics are used to pool the data from a set of similar input metrics. Add
• Network-aware. These metrics dynamically measure a company’s performance based on the performance of related companies, including suppliers, subsidiaries and brand partners, combining Relationship Metrics with other metric types. An example of this would be “Modern Slavery Act Shareholder Percentage” which would look at what percentage of companies in an investors portfolio have produced a Modern Slavery Statement. This feature is new and a live example will be added to the site shortly.

Standard Fields

All metrics have the following fields:

• Designer.  The organization, user, or research group credited with designing the metric.
• Title. A short, descriptive metric name. While multiple metrics can have the same title, the full metric name (designer + title) must be unique.
• Question. A concise question that can be answered concretely for specific companies in specific years.
• Metric Type. One of the researched or calculated types described above.
• Topics. A list of related topics to help users navigate thematically connected WikiRate content.
• About. A short description of what this Metric is about, its relevance, why companies report on this, and how it is valuable.

Special Fields

All researched metrics have these fields:

• Research Policy. Either Community Assessed (anyone can research answers) or Designer Assessed (only the designer can).
• Methodology. Guidance and tips for determining answer values.
• Report Type. The type of report in which answers to this metric are found. (Eg. CSR,  Conflict Minerals, etc.). This is used to identify relevant sources on the research page.
• Value Type. The data type of answer values. One of the following
  • Number. answers can contain only numerical values. Metrics with this type have these subfields:
    • Unit. Eg metric tonnes.
    • Range.  Eg. 0-100
  • Money. A number with a currency
  • Category. answer value is selected from options,  eg Yes/No
  • Multi-category. more than one answer value can be selected from options.
  • Free Text. for questions that require a qualitative response, or have a variety of possible responses (like Country or Region)

Metrics whose value type is “category” or “multi-category” have an Options subfield: a list of possible answer values.

Formula and Descendant metrics have a Researchable field. When checked, researchers can directly add researched answers where calculated answers are unknown or incorrect.  In such cases, the metrics will also have all the research fields described above.

Calculated metrics also have a Formula. The interface for creating a formula varies strongly by type.

• Formula cards have an open formula editor. Write Metric Formulae
• Score's formula editors depend on the value type of the scored metric.  Numbers are scored with formulas, categories are scored by with value mappings.
• WikiRating formula editors allow you to select scored metrics and assign them weights.
• Descendant formula editors simply allow metrics to be selected and ordered.