Evidence and Measurements

An activity tells people what the team says it is doing. Reports, observations, and data help people look more closely.

For a community energy project, an installation report might explain what was built. Photos can document progress. Meter readings can show how much electricity the installation produces. Each adds something different to the account of the work.

Hypercerts has two building blocks for sharing this material: attachments and measurements.

Attachments give people something to inspect#

An attachment is a general-purpose way to connect material to an activity claim or any other record it concerns: documents, photos, datasets, or links. It can carry a progress update, a research paper, a field report, or a link to a software release.

Attachments can come from the project itself or from anyone else, such as a partner, an auditor, or a community member. Each attachment is a record of its own and stays associated with whoever published it. It can point to one or several subjects, so the same report can give context to more than one activity. The material can be linked from elsewhere or included as an uploaded file where supported.

Not every attachment is evidence. A plan explains intent; a progress report describes work; a dataset may help test a claim. Give the material a clear title and description so readers know what they are looking at.

Measurements make observations easier to reuse#

A measurement records a quantitative observation: what was measured, the value, and the unit. It can also describe the method, name the measurers, identify the period, and link to supporting data.

For example, “the installation produced 4,200 kWh during August” is more useful than a number in an unlabeled spreadsheet. Another application can recognize the metric and unit, show the observation alongside earlier readings, and let a reviewer inspect the method.

Context still matters. Energy production is an observation; the broader environmental benefit requires interpretation. Similarly, attendance at a workshop is different from evidence of what participants learned.

Add information without rewriting the original#

The team can publish attachments and measurements, and other people can contribute their own. Each record links to the work it concerns and remains associated with its publisher.

That means a project can gain new evidence after its initial description is published, including evidence that challenges an earlier account. The value comes from making the material accessible and connected, not from treating publication as proof.

The Attachment and Measurement references describe the available fields.

Next: Evaluations, where people explain what the evidence means.