46 Trial Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners advocacy on narrow set of issues), well-organized filing systems and a spreadsheet may provide adequate means to track and compile relevant information and analysis.51 5.2 Advanced information-management systems For large-scale and complex programmes, it is more appropriate to develop an advanced information-management system than to use a simple case registration chart.52 This is because such systems also enable the compilation, systematization and comparative analysis of many discrete practices, with a view to drawing overarching conclusions about systematic issues and challenges across many cases. To cater for these needs in complex programmes, a more sophisticated information-management system should be considered a useful and cost-effective tool. These systems are often realized technically as electronic databases. An advanced information-management system is able to store and systematize case information and compile qualitative and quantitative data in any number of combinations for which the system is programmed. An advanced information-management system also ensures that the institutional memory of the programme is preserved, including by making older monitoring results readily accessible for new staff. The maintenance of and access to past monitoring records is crucial to comparing and measuring changes over time. Advanced information-management systems can help ensure consistency, precision and quality of information at all stages of trial-monitoring activities. They can help to guide the process of identification and collection of the relevant data. It is also paramount that they allow both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the information collected. To achieve this objective, an advanced information-management system has first to identify the set of categories of information — also known as metadata — relevant for quantitative analysis of cases.53 By processing this information the system provides aggregated data on the number and type of cases monitored, the procedural stage of the cases and their locations, information about defendants and their legal representation, and key data about judges and court services, as well as applicable legislation and other relevant case details. In addition, an advanced information-management system can help disaggregate information along qualitative lines. For this purpose it is recommended that the system use fair trial standards to classify or sort the substantive or procedural issues of the cases. This rights-based approach to the system helps to identify systemic challenges, as well as specific problematic cases. In turn, this can help the programme to identify the issues while continuing to gather relevant data. As an example, one of the issues commonly monitored by programmes is the right to defence counsel. A large-scale programme may monitor more than 1,000 hearings, involving hundreds of cases at different stages of proceedings, where the issue of the right to defence counsel was assessed. One simple statistic that might be meaningful in providing a broad overview of the right to defence counsel is the frequency of appearance of defence counsel in monitored cases. In a simple information-storage system, such information could be obtained through a review and hand count of case reports. An advanced, computer-based information-management system would eliminate the need for counting and might, within seconds, provide the following types of statistics from the same reports: • the number of cases involving serious crimes involving long-term imprisonment in which no defence counsel was present at trial; 51  The OSCE Mission to Serbia and the former OSCE Office in Zagreb are examples of such a system. 52  A few OSCE field operations, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova and Montenegro, have developed such advanced information-management systems in the form of electronic databases. 53  This information will include, for instance: the case number, the name of the parties and the name of the judge.