Statistical Publication System in Switzerland' The development of OECD statistical products'

1
Statistical Publication System in
Switzerland.The development of OECD statistical
products.

• Armin GrossenbacherOECD Task Force, February 2007

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• This paper intends to make a contribution to the
  OECDs discussion on the development of
  statistical products.
• It does this from the background of the
  statistical publication system in Switzerland and
  experience gained in this field.

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OECD Discussion Points

• Target audiences
• Role of central statistical warehouse
• Role of print publications
• Differentiation of views, electronic products for
  different audiences
• Links between products
• How to make dissemination as local as possible
• New electronic or print publications
• Evaluating usage and success of products

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Target Audiences
OECD Discussion Points (1)
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Main Groups of Content Users

• Based on a broad marketing study, the FSO has
  established three main groups of content users
• General Interest (Tourists)
• Business Interest (Farmers)
• Research Interest (Miners)
• These three groups allow the content we offer to
  be structured in a quick and simple manner.
  Example The Webportal follows this three tier
  model (thematic navigation, DB predefined files,
  DB interactive tables).
• These groups may be structured in more detail and
  combined with traditional target groups like
  government, enterprieses, media, general public.

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Organizing the content for users taxonomy of 21
first-level themes

• The FSO has set up a thematic framework in order
  to organize the content of its publishing
  activities, i.e. its articles. This taxonomy of
  21 first-level themes is used for all media. All
• publications follow these themes, the Statistical
  Yearbook has its chapters organized along these
  themes and the Statistics Portal uses it as well.
• In all content offers users are systematically
  guided by these consistent and homogenous topical
  fields.
• We call these themes or topical fields Products

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Organizing the content taxonomy of 21
first-level themes or products
11 Transport and communications 12 Money, banks,
insurance companies13 Social Security14
Health 15 Education and science16 Culture,
information society, sports17 Politics18 Public
administration and finance19 Crime and criminal
justice20 Economic and social situation of
the population 21 Sustainable development,
regional and international disparities
0 Statistical underpinnings and overviews 1
Population 2 Territory and environment 3
Employment and income from employment 4
National economy5 Prices 6 Industry and
services7 Agriculture and forestry 8 Energy 9
Construction and housing 10 Tourism
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Was? Für wen? Instrumente
Target Audiences Planning the information offer
Planning the information offer
Main offers for specific target groups(Strategic
business fields)
Which target groups? (Marketing model)
Polit. Mandate
Which content / offer? (Products)
Available ressourcesPersonnel and finances
Multiannualprogramme
Planning the output
Portfolio of articlesAnnual publication programme
Annual objectives
Marketing
Evaluation, Performance indicators
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Target Audiences
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (1)
Who are we reaching today? Who should we be
targeting as new users?- OECD specific,
depending on organizations mandate and strategic
business fields (international comparisons,
indicators). Why lay audiences?- FSO Our system
classifies users (see above) and helps building
user oriented offers (see below). More evaluating
and more marketing activities are needed.
Actually we are planning to target more customers
paying for our offers (business and research
interest via individual services) and to
introduce online advertising.For lay audiences
Very simple works best and creates a door to
other statistical offers http//www.bfs.admin.ch/
bfs/portal/en/index/dienstleistungen/forumkids/01.
html and http//www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/ind
ex/international/laenderportraets.html
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Central statistical data warehouseThe role of
paper publications Differentiation of viewsThe
interaction between productsHow to make
dissemination localProposals for new publications
OECD Discussion Points (2)
.
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Articles and Article Profiles

• We call the information units deliverded to users
  Articles, for instance a print publication, a
  press release, a web presentation.
• In order to organize these articles offered to
  users we distinguish between "information types"
  or "article profiles to meet the distinct
  information needs of the three user groups. This
  allows us to define these "article profiles"
• 1 Popular short presentations
• 2 Overviews / Reference works
• 3 Studies / Analysis
• 4 News services
• 5 Individual data services (FSO services to users)

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Article Models

• For each of these "article profiles" we further
  define a limited number of information
  containers. These containers, classified along
  the three dissemination media "print", "offline
  (CD ROM, DVD)" and "online", provide information
  producers with a set of clear rules for
  information delivery and also help organize the
  output production according to well defined
  standards. We call such containers Article
  Models

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Article Profiles and Article Models
1
2
3
4
5
Target Groups
General Interest
Business Interest
Research Interest
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Central statistical data warehouse
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (2)
What are the best practices to get the most out
of the central data warehouse? Such a system is
THE dream of a statistics disseminator. It is the
non redundant source of all articles in all
media. In FSO we are working at such a
datawarehouse and have some concepts how to link
it with the articles we already deliver,
especially in introducing automated workflows
from datawarehouse to article.
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Editorial Guidelines

• Editorial guidelines define which article
  profiles and models should be prioritized in the
  three media print, offline and online.

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Editorial Guidelines Print (1)

• In the shift process from print to electronic
  publishing print publications must be reduced to
• o a core offer by product
• - a Popular Short Presentation of the most
  important results (leporello)
• - an Overview Publication holding the results of
  a theme pro-duct flagship publication (standard
  publication text, graphs, some tables and
  eventually more tables on CD or by links to
  Online)
• - a continuous presentation of the News in a
  product (press releases, FSO in focus,
  newsletters)

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Editorial Guidelines Print (2)

• o eventually an additional offer by product
• - Analysis or Studies to important issues in
  political and social life (standard publication
  text, graphs, ev. tables on CD)
• Reference work publications (table volumes)
  figure no longer as a print article model. They
  are replaced by online article models
  (Encyclopedia, Online Database). An example All
  the printed table publications in the product
  Prices will be replaced 2007 by a searchable
  database consisting of predefined tables
  (Miniature Encyclopedia produced out of the
  Encyclopedia) and one flagship publication
  (print, standard publication).

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Editorial Guidelines Print (3)

• Print articles are sold as physical copies and
  delivered for free as pdf files via a searchable
  database (Encyclopedia and Publications
  Database).
• More and more the print article models are no
  longer printed by FSO but directly by the users
  or on demand for the users (print on
  demand).Original print article models become so
  a kind of electronic article models.

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The role of paper publications
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (3)
Is there still a user need for regularly produced
compilations of tables?Paper publications
comprise more than table compilations. There are
article models like leporellos, standard
publications (text, graphs and some tables) or
press releases without lots of tables. Such
publications in the field (article profiles) of
short presentations, overwievs, analysis are
still necessary. Last but not least in order to
stay physically present in the target audiences
(PR effect).
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Editorial Guidelines Offline

• CD-ROM or DVD as a Reference work comprising a
  collection of detailed information (tables,
  texts, graphs), added for instance to a flagship
  publication.

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Editorial Guidelines Online

• Online is by far the most comprehensive offer.
• The first tier (for general interest) provides
  chapters such as THEMES, REGIONAL, INTERNATIONAL
  to publish short thematic descriptions
  (Panoramas), small tables, texts, graphs, maps
  and downloads (press releases, publications) and
  also to access metadata databases.
• In the second tier (for business interest) the
  huge Statistical Encyclopedia gives access to
  predefined tables and a lot of other files.
• In the third tier (for research interest) the
  online database lets users build their own
  tables.

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What users get

• The publication system with its editorial
  guidelines structures the access to statistical
  information for the users and gives producers a
  clear framework and also assures clear workflows.
• How can users access to statistics?
• Main entrance Web portal!

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What users get
Homepage Statistics Switzerland
First structuration by topics and news
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What users get

• The news structured by
• Press releases- Agenda- Publications-
  Newsletters- Events- Jobs- Tender- Projects

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What users get
For each and every topican identical
structuration- Overview - Subthemes (with data
and analysis) - Reference (look up press
releases, publications, links to offers for
farmers and miners predefined tables,
interactive tabulation) - Metadata (look up
sources, nomenclatures, definitions)
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What users get
Direct access to - geographic information
(regional, internationalwith tables and maps,
atlas)
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What users get
Direct access to the Databases Infothek
(farmers, miners)- Predefined tables-
Interactive tabu- lation - Publications cata-
logue- Sources- Definitions- Nomenclatures
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What users get

• The publications catalogue lists all articles
  according to the 4 print article models
  Leporellos, standard publications, FSO in focus,
  Newsletters.

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Electronic products for different audiences?
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (4)
Which audiences need what services? Does one-size
fit all?No.The (growing) online offer needs to
be structured- by themes- by depth of
information (overviews, predefined tables,
interactive tabulation)- by individual filtering
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How to make dissemination as local to users as
possible?
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (5)
Dissemination via websites that target audiences
use regularly as opposed to visit a singe
website Some strategies 1) Building up an
(inter)national Statistics Portal as a
general/global entrance point2) Introducing
statistics in well visited local websites, be
this websites of NSIs or others via syndication
(RSS ), web services3) Facilitating global
statistics search by harmonizing and using (and
translating) common keywords (semantic web!)
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Proposals for new electronic/paper publications
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (6)
Articles users are waiting for, ideas 1)
Individualization Specific theme packages
produced out of the statistics portal eDossiers
(web to go), individual configuration of the
website (myStatistics via predefined
filters/searches) 2) Ease of access RSS, more
and better visible metadata, keyword access
(semantic web), interlinking media and
articles 3) Visual access to data (interactive
graphs, maps, atlas) http//www.bfs.admin.ch/
bfs/portal/de/index/themen/17/03/blank/key/2006/03
.html , http//www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/porta
l/fr/index/regionen.html 4) Interactivity/communi
cation feedback via Blogs
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Interaction and links between different products
and associated analysis?
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (7)
How best to help readers move between analytical
publications, tables and databases? Portal
Product entrance pages (News and Trends) give
an overwiev (like dedicated pages in EUROSTAT) -gt
see next slide. DOI as a means to interlink media
Categorized search
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OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (7)
The first page of every topic (product) gives an
introduction and overview to the offer.The
leftside navigation always shows the way to more
information and metadata
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Methods of evaluating usage levels/success of
different products
OECD Discussion Points (3)
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Methods of evaluating usage levels/success of
different products
OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (8)

• How can usage been measured? What determines
  success?
• Performance indicators we use at FSO
• Print publications commands and sales by
  product (output of the business database SAP)
• Online web analysis by Google Analytics
• User surveys planned, harmonized with other
  NSIs / Eurostats surveys.

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Glossary

• Products Groups of thematically organized
  content SFSO offers to ist users. As an example
  content about population, prices, health. 21
  products, synonym Theme, topic.
• Article The information unit users can get. For
  instance a print publication, a CD ROM, a Webpage
  or a set of webpages.
• Article profile Categories of articles defined
  by the kind of usage like short presentation,
  overview, news service
• Article model Types of articles like press
  release, publication. A.m. are well defined and
  standardized to make their production clear and
  easy for all partners.To each article profile
  belong several article models