Hi, adding my two cents..
I'm all for people calling it whatever they want in particular settings, and there are many examples of that, at least applied to the _system_ as a whole.
As for the piece of software, called DHIS, the name stands for District Health Information Software, because it is (just) software and not a system. This piece of software may perfectly well be used for a (distributed, or district, or anything else) Health Information System, like DHIMS in Ghana, or DHIS (S for System) in Sierra Leone.
I think it would be confusing to start using different names for the _software_, also since DHIS is an established name by its own, shared across the community. The easiest would be to just call it DHIS, which also works well serving food security data in Bangladesh and a regional demographic and health observatory for West Africa, or the global health observatory at WHO. Since we all agree that there is a big difference between system and software, I suggest we keep calling the software software, and system system.
Regards Johan On 02.05.2013 16:31, Arunima s mukherjee wrote:
having 'system' definitely makes more sense. after all even to run dhis (in any deployment) the software in itself doesn't do much, it is the system and processes around the dhis which make it functional. as they say... Aeroplanes do not fly, airlines do Similarly, softwares do not achieve much, information systems do On 2 May 2013 07:06, Bob Jolliffe <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Using 'Software' in the name of a piece of software is quite unusual. In fact I can't think of other examples. It would be like the thing I drive being branded an "Opel Car" :-) 'System' is more common, though agree with Jason and Arthur that there is a big difference between the software system and all the components of the functioning information system. On 2 May 2013 15:00, Arthur Heywood <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Aha ... at last a point of (semantic) disagreement!! We ARE talking about a district health system .... that DOES involve people, governance, leadership etc .... all the WHO building blocks .... of which the District health Information System is a key one (the main one for us HISPers) ..... As I see it, the DHIS Software is merely a great piece of software to support that district health information system Maybe we should talk about the DHISS when we talk about the software?? Yours semantically Arthur *Without deviation from the norm, there can be no progress *(Frank Zappa) *Skype* arthur_heywood_za *Tanzania* +255-773-669393 <tel:%2B255-773-669393> *Nigeria *+234 8168883965 <tel:%2B234%208168883965> *S. A.* +27837383100 <tel:%2B27837383100> On 2 May 2013 14:37, Jason Pickering <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I am all for calling "it" what you want, but I do think "system" might be going a bit too far actually. DHIS is simply the software. What it is not, is the "system" which supports the software, the typical distinction between the "Health Information System" and the "Health management information software/system". In some cases, "system" and "software" are used interchangeably, and often a lot of focus is placed on the software, while the "system" which the software simply supports, is not provided the same level of thought, and is often much more complex because it involves people. Regards, Jason On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 8:24 PM, Lars Kristian Roland <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: As an example of an abbreviation that has changed meaning, I would mention GSM, which I believe first meant Group Speciale Mobile (excuse my french) and later Global System for Mobile communication. I would support Prosper's observation that District may not cover the distributed system that DHIS2 has become. MobiLars On 2013 5 2 15:12, "Knut Staring" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: There is indeed a long history, as Jason points out, and the "district" focus took its inspiration from the WHO Alma Ata Declaration from 1978 and its focus on Primary Health Care and "Health For All" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Ata_Declaration Furthermore, the very first versions of DHIS came out of close collaboration with three pilot districts in Cape Town: http://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/hisp/hisp-history.html http://folk.uio.no/patrickr/refdoc/BraaHedberg02.pdf http://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/hisp/integrated-health-information-architecture.html However, by this stage, it seems to me that the acronym DHIS has also acquired quite an identity of its own, a bit like e.g. IBM, a name much like others, which could be used without necessarily going into "what it stands for". Knut On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Jason Pickering <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Proper, Remember, with open source software, you are free to call it what you want! I know of a private company who has now forked DHIS2 and are calling it something entirely different, for their own reasons. In other countries, DHIS2 has been branded differently, according to their own acronyms. I would however, not expect a change on this, given the long history. :) My two cents, Jason On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Prosper BT <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dear team, Quite often end users especially below and above the district level have asked Why 'District' and we have struggled to explain this by first telling history. In passing someone suggested renaming District to Decentralized and Software to System. What it if in respect of maintaining the acronym it becomes "Decentralized Health Information System - DHIS? 'Don't kill the messenger' Regards -- Prosper Behumbiize, MPH Phone: +256 414 320076 <tel:%2B256%20414%20320076> Cell: +256 752 751776 <tel:%2B256%20752%20751776> +256 702 762707 <tel:%2B256%20702%20762707> _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> Post to : [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> Post to : [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp -- Knut Staring Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo +4791880522 <tel:%2B4791880522> http://dhis2.org _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> Post to : [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> Post to : [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> Post to : [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> Post to : [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users <https://launchpad.net/%7Edhis2-users> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dhis2-users More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
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