RECAP BENEFIT ASSESSMENT SYSTEM. System Development Report.

This report presents the indicators for assessing the benefits of research investments, a detailed description of the Benefit Assessment System (BAS) and the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework using the indicators. BAS uses a systems approach where ReCAP-BAS is considered to comprise a number of interdependent and interacting subsystems of an organised whole system. Six subsystems are identified and performance indicators are categorized according to these sub-systems. A scoring system is used for the indicators, and their surrogates for each subsystem are scored according to the relative importance in defining the subsystem. The ReCAP-BAS can be visualized as a report (score) card where grades (or scores) are assigned to the various indicators or groups for each subsystem. Poor performance in one area does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the program/project is a failure. The relative merits (scores) of the various subsystems of the framework need to be considered in assessing the overall benefits of the program/project in any given time frame. The systems architecture is also presented. It describes the structure of the database and M&E website using Open-Source software application. The open-source software suite is sustainable and presents a simple yet powerful architecture which integrates very well with other open standard application for data visualization and manipulation