Transcript Open Discussion Work Session on Statistical Dissemination and Communication May 2008 Facilitator: Gina Pearson (U.S.

Open Discussion
Work Session on Statistical
Dissemination and Communication
May 2008
Facilitator: Gina Pearson
(U.S. Energy Information Administration)
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 1
Discussion Questions

What are the major themes that emerged
during the course of the conference?

What are the important outstanding
questions or issues? Which topics
especially warrant further discussion?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 2
Major Themes

How to successfully serve so many diverse (divergent)
audiences / user groups.
•



Developing & managing a customer feedback strategy /
approach
Importance of customers and stakeholders – who are
they and what are their needs?
Product development – related to user feedback
Challenges of changing environment, both internal (eg
moving from having only a press secretary to a public
relations office) and external (adapting product suite
and web site to suit changing client groups and needs)
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 3
Major Themes



Methods for preventing errors from leaving the
office / proofreading and how to deal with them
if they do
Quality assurance (like a future topic on this
provided we don’t duplicate work in other
groups)
Political independence and equal treatment of
media
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 4
Major Themes

Keeping up with the latest communications
and technology tools, techniques, etc (RSS,
Blogs, pod & video casting, wikis, etc).
•
•

Data visualization
Need to remember focus on communication not
technical aspects
The need for standard structure(s) for data,
data integration, data commonality, etc.
Metadata is a recurrent issue.
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 5
Major Themes

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Requests for and confidentiality of data
Reconcile differences in data available at
regional and national level
Education / statistical literacy
Role of dissemination vs communication
– overlap and differences?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 6
Questions & Issues

One of our stated goals is to ‘train’ statisticians
& subject specialists to design tables & write
reports that tell interesting stories. Is there
thought of working with meta-data writers to
write for non-statistical audiences?

What are the key functional branches (teams)
needed for the communications arm of a
national statistical organization?

How can web governance be integrated with
web content?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 7
Questions & Issues

How has the 24/7 news cycle provided
challenges and opportunities for statistical
communications organizations?

How much influence should stakeholders have
concerning the inclusion of content questions
and format?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 8
Questions & Issues

Should we create an international
statistics ‘access license’ (standards
involving identification of source,
protection of original data, conditions for
re-use and re-distribution)and, if so,
how?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 9
Questions & Issues

ABS is looking at a system for licensing its
data on the internet; legal issues and IT issues
are being looked at. Are other agencies
considering using watermarks etc for this. So
any lessons? (Australia)
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 10
Questions & Issues

Dissemination of sensitive group-specific
results (SGSR) – from Heinrich Brungger:
•
Concerning the issue of release of small
aggregates, do you have special rules or a special
policy for SGSR? If yes, what are they?
• What type of comments did you add to the last
release of a SGSR?
• What was the reaction by media and users? Were
some of these interpretations erroneous, and if yes
did the NSO react publicly?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 11
Questions & Issues

To charge or not to charge
•
What are the price policies of other
statistical organizations and how does this
differ depending on the category of user?
• Nat’l Statistical Service of Greece – charges
only for tailor-made data & printed pubs, but
special discounts for students & universities,
free for public sector organizations
• Do organizations charge for metadata?
How much?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 12
Questions & Issues

Pre-release of information
•
•
•
•
•
To pre-release or not to pre-release?
Pre-release to whom and why?
Market-moving information – the exception?
Need for guidelines?
Role of technology?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 13
Questions & Issues

Can we use the disscomm listserv to
have discussions in between meetings?
How can we achieve that?
15 May 2008
UNECE Statistical Division
Slide 14