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Text Mining

Text mining provides a way to efficiently extract meaningful information from the increasing amounts of unstructured text. Its combination of interpretative appraisal and statistical techniques has the potential to generate novel insights, ultimately contributing to evidence-based policy-making. In collaboration with Leipzig University, DEval applies text mining in evaluations and develops tools to make the necessary infrastructure to apply text mining available to evaluators.

Summary

All processes of formulating and implementing development cooperation policies create text: proposals describe means and ends of interventions; progress reports monitor the steps towards desired outcomes; and evaluations provide evidence on the effects of development interventions. In addition, press and social media reflect the public opinion on development cooperation and, in some cases, are even indicative of outcomes.

The increased availability of digital text has rendered detailed reading of all relevant sources impossible. Text mining combines a qualitative appraisal of meaning and complex statistical approaches to extract relevant information from text. It provides a methodological tool to cope with the abundance of digital information by enabling evaluators to efficiently analyse large document collections.

The German Institute of Development Evaluation applies text mining in its evaluations and develops tools to facilitate the application of text mining by evaluators. This includes the development of a tool to geocode project locations based on project documents, machine learning for analysing human rights mainstreaming in development project documents, natural language processing and sentiment analysis of newspaper articles and tweets, and supporting the development of a text mining infrastructure that provides a web-interface and integrated workflows to simplify the use of text mining for evaluators.

Team

Contact

Portrait von Dr. Thomas Wencker
© DEval

Dr Thomas Wencker

Senior Evaluator - Team Leader

Phone: +49 (0)228 336907-951

E-mail: thomas.wencker@DEval.org

Portrait von Dr. Sven Harten
© DEval

Dr Sven Harten

Head of Competence Centre for Evaluation Methodology / Deputy Director

Phone: +49 (0)228 336907-950

E-mail: sven.harten@DEval.org

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