Processing explained

This is work in progress.

The intention here is to expand on the bare outline given in the processing page, and provide richer explanation, or tutorial if you like, whence I've taken the sub-namespace “tut”.

One clear way to look at the processing is at four levels:

1. the question level
2. the enquiry level
3. the server level
4. the response level
5. privacy options

The question level looks at how one particular question in an enquiry is processed, in terms of the requirement on one side and the potential answer on the other; the enquiry level looks at how the results at the question level are put together to make one person's response to the whole enquiry; at the server level (which won't exist in the first demonstrations and prototypes) the results from the fitting enquiries are summed up to give back; and finally the response level shows how all these are presented to the enquiring person, and how they are guided to improve their enquiry.

These pages approach from the angle of explanation. Read them in conjunction with the levels above.

1. Set out the nature of the information we are dealing with:
   1. answers are always voluntary, logged, change-evident, stable, cumulative;
   2. requirements are completely fluid;
   3. …
2. Make sure that the two-way nature of the process is clear, with simple examples.
3. Make it completely clear how any misfitting on either side prevents meeting, and the rationale for that.
4. Explain in principle how the fitting process provides stimulus for either side to answer more questions, but only the significant, relevant ones.
5. Clarify the process of enquiry correspondence between two whole enquiries, each with multiple questions. This is likely to need more than one diagram.
6. Introduce the nature of a distributed architecture, motivated by scalability, resilience, and other factors.
7. Explain how the distributed architecture in practice would work; but also, how the basic principles can be tested within one server.
8. Clarify the response level (to the user, that is), depending on the number of potential fitting enquiries:
   1. if many enquiries fit (which is unlikely) then invite to be more demanding;
   2. if no enquiries fit, give a response to the user aimed at guiding towards fitting;
   3. whether any fit or not, prompting more answers to significant questions;
   4. …
9. The rationale for having different enquiry types, and the 7 ones identified.
10. Introduce the challenges of the question curation ecosystem:
    1. what is a good quality self-assessment scale;
    2. distribution of curation between participating expert networks or bodies;
    3. …