The best source is not always the most visible
A search engine can return recent news, but a technology decision may also need industrial property records, academic publications, regulatory documents, company communications and market signals. Each source has a function: discovering players, detecting changes, confirming facts, providing context or offering an external interpretation.
In the historical training courses, the objectives → sources step included websites, newsletters, RSS, articles and patents, as well as the competitor’s official sources and cross-cutting sources such as associations, trade fairs and journals. What is needed today is not to promise access to «the whole internet», but to document which universe is actually covered, by what mechanism and with what limits.
Distinguish at least four layers of sources: primary (documents issued by the entity or authority that originates the fact), secondary (media and analyses that report or interpret the fact), specialised (sector databases, patents, science or regulation) and authorised internal (knowledge the company may legitimately use). A primary source is not automatically true or complete: a corporate note may describe intentions, while a formal registration or a technical document may offer different evidence.
Interactive · Classify
The four layers of sources
Place each source in its layer.
Activity: classify sources as primary, secondary, specialised or authorised internal.
Prediction
What percentage of the case's 16 records has low indicative reliability?
Before opening the case, estimate with the control. Each square is 1%.
What percentage of the case's 16 records has low indicative reliability?: this activity needs JavaScript.
Data: the 16 simulated records of the fictional case (“indicative reliability” column).
Building the coverage map
Start from each CWF. First identify observable events: the grant of a patent, an announcement of a collaboration, the publication of a consultation, the opening of a plant or hiring related to a capability. Then ask which sources could record each event. The unit of design is not «a portal» but «a relevant event we need to detect».
A useful source sheet contains: identifier, URL or institution, type, question/CWF, observable event, geography and language, permitted access, expected publication frequency, query cadence, capture mechanism, owner, quality/reliability, date of last check and a fallback if it fails. The map must include declared gaps: databases without a subscription, platforms that prevent automation, languages not covered, private information that cannot be accessed and sources whose format changes.
Company A case · simulation
Fictional caseCompany A case · From four signals to defensible coverage
To assess thermal storage solutions, Company A might have: a patent register for inventive activity; technical publications for performance; corporate communications for announced pilots; and regulatory sources for regulatory milestones. The same announcement can appear in three media outlets, but at origin it is still a single signal. That is why we record the initial source and avoid confusing multiple copies with independent corroboration.
Imagine that for two weeks no news item about a competitor appears. Is it inactive, or did the source break? Record the last successful check and the status. «No news» and «no data» must never be merged. Social sources, private repositories and pages that require authentication have particular restrictions: do not promise access the user does not have.
Educational simulation: fictional information and organisations.
Do it yourself
Do it yourself · Coverage map and blind spots (20 minutes)
For your main CWF, define five possible events. For each one, propose a primary source and, where appropriate, another that cross-checks the data. Add the columns accessibility, frequency, owner and known limit. Mark each event as: covered in a repeatable way / partial coverage / not covered. Choose the highest-impact gap and describe a proportionate mitigation: periodic manual search, a legitimate subscription, consulting an expert or accepting the risk.
Quality test. Your table must answer: «If there are no alerts for a month, can we show what we reviewed?». If not, it is not an operational coverage map.
Map of sources and coverage
Locate sources, limits, frequency and gaps.
See the template →Operational monitoring plan
Turn the design into a sustainable routine.
See the template →Check it · self-assessment
Check your coverage map
This part needs professional judgement: there is no automatic marking. Complete your work in the practice, rate it with the lesson's rubric and compare it with the indicative solution.
What your answer should include
- Each event has a primary source and, where appropriate, a cross-checking one.
- You mark each event as covered, partial or not covered.
- You record known limits and the health of each source.
- Another person can tell silence from a technical failure.
Indicative solution
For patents, record the office or jurisdiction, the date of the query and delays; for a contract, state whether the private event may fall outside. A month with no results only lets you say «nothing detected in the operating sources consulted», not «it did not happen».
Illustrative solution for a fictional case: reasoned alternatives are valid.
Legitimate sources
A good coverage map includes only sources you can use and cite: publications, public registers, patents, trade fairs, corporate websites, licensed databases and conversations in which you identify yourself. Before adding a source that involves personal data, restricted access or doubtful terms of use, review the ethical criteria and legal limits in lesson 5.1 and seek advice if necessary.
Common mistakes
Choosing only what a search engine indexes; logging thousands of sources with no owners; using duplicated sources as supposed validation; ignoring languages and restrictions; not checking the health of the sources. Takeaway: an inventory and a map of blind spots.
Optional extensionGoing deeper · Coverage has dimensions, not a magic percentage
A source may cover an event only for one country, language, type of player or time interval. It is misleading to call monitoring «complete» because a tool returns many records. Describe coverage as a relationship between event × territory × language × period × source × access. Identify the detectability of the event and the technical health of the source separately.
A primary source proves the existence of what it publishes, but not necessarily the reality of all its promises. A company press release confirms that the company has made a statement; a technical report or an independent register may be needed to assert performance or adoption. Secondary sources can be valuable for discovery, context or contradictions, but three republications are not equivalent to three confirmations.
Worked case · A small but auditable map
| Company A event | Source that can reveal it | Complementary check | Known limit | Health check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent application | Accessible industrial property register | Family, applicant and status | Publication delays and jurisdictional differences | Last documented search |
| Announced pilot | Corporate communication | Operator, site or pilot documentation | There may be only a statement of intent | Access and changes on the page |
| Contract in operation | Verifiable register or communication | Counterparty and date, when public | Some contracts are private | Record accepted gap |
| Regulatory change | Publication by the competent authority | Text and date of entry into force | Different rules and competences by market | Milestone calendar and review |
The absence of news in four operating sources does not prove the absence of private activity. The defensible sentence would be: «We have not detected an event of the defined type in these sources and in this interval, and we have checked that the queries work». This is a more useful statement than «nothing has happened».
Coverage stress test (20 minutes)
Simulate three failures: an RSS feed stops updating, a website changes its structure and a source stops accepting automated queries. For each one record when you would detect it, how you would tell a failure from silence, which authorised alternative source you would use and who authorises changing the procedure. A health check can consist of manually checking the origin and documenting the date; it does not require a specialised platform.
Verifiable deliverable: in R03 record five events, at least one source or declared gap per event, the date of the last check and a prioritised mitigation. Connection: R03 and R05; Lab L02. Do not promise coverage of non-public information or of access you have not contracted.
Interactive · Decide
Stress test: silence or failure?
For each situation, decide which sentence you can write in the log.
Activity: coverage stress test with three failures.
The technical portal's RSS feed has not been updated for 15 days.
A competitor's website changes structure and the capture returns empty pages.
Four operational, verified sources record no contract in the period.
References and limits
- European Parliament and Council of the EU · OJ L 157 of 15.6.2016. Directiva (UE) 2016/943, de 8 de junio de 2016, relativa a la protección de los conocimientos técnicos y la información empresarial no divulgados (secretos comerciales) (2016). DocumentEuropean framework for trade secrets: which information is protected and which means of acquisition are lawful.Reference verified on 2026-10-18.
- Innguma · internal training material. Definición de un sistema de vigilancia (presentación, 2021-12-01) (2021).Methodological basis of the watch cycle and of the critical watch factors.Innguma training material, not public.
- Innguma · internal training material. Construyendo un sistema de vigilancia (presentación, 2022-04-28) (2022).Sources, filtering, management and dissemination.Innguma training material, not public.
- Company A is a fictional case: its data, companies and figures do not describe real markets or organisations.
- The timings, frequencies and lists in the plan are adjustable teaching proposals, not mandatory procedures of a standard.
Intelligence Lab · L02
Monitoring plan builder
Ready to apply it? Open the Monitoring plan builder in the Lab and build an editable plan you can download. Output: editable monitoring plan. Works in the browser, no server, no account and no connected AI. The result may need reviewing and adapting to your case.