Data Dissemination in the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics

1
Data Dissemination in the Brazilian Institute of
Geography and Statistics Working Session on
Emerging Trends and Best Practices in Data
Dissemination
New York - 3rd March, 2006
2
Introduction

• The outstanding development of Information
  Technology in the last years has strongly changed
  the way the National Statistical Agencies deal
  with their users. It did also generate many
  challenges that will be felt the near future.

3
Background

• Statistical dissemination in the IBGE was
  traditionally executed in two ways
• (a) For the general public by means of
  communication, release results or press
  conferences.
• (b) For the general users through reference
  publications (Statistical Yearbooks, Compendiums
  etc.), and printed reports. When it comes to more
  specialized users and government agencies, the
  requirements are met through customized tables
  and microdata not identified in magnetic media,
  and these users ought to have computing centers.

4
Background

• The majority of information used to get to the
  public in an indirect manner, that is
• (a) By means of communication through a
  journalistic language, especially that which
  affected all persons lives (Price Indexes, GDP,
  Unemployment Rate, etc. )
• (b) Through a third party in publications
  partially reproducing the information, as in
  analytic or didactic texts, etc.
• (c) By means of the Institutes call center.

5
Background

• The information dissemination used to end after
  the press communication and the publications were
  made available for reference.

6
WEB Page - The first steps

• The first steps in the elaboration of a WEB page
  were taken with institutional information,
  conjuncture indexes and synthesis of the most
  recent statistical information in HTML pages.
  From that point, we verify an outstanding growth
  in this communication channel.
• Due to Institutional decision, a policy of free
  dissemination of all products in Internet was
  adopted since 2001.
• Today, we can notice the success of the decisions
  that were taken at that time.

7
The Current Scenario
Users 320,835 in 1997 and 10,057,236 in 2005.
8
The Current Scenario
Pageviews 1,873,665 in 1997 and 835,017,975 in
2005.
9
The Current Scenario
Downloads 14,169 in 1997 and 1,831,764 in
2005.
10
The Current Scenario

• Internet The Institution Web site

11
The Web page contents

• IBGE Web page has 43,411 pages. It is organized
  by themes or by surveys.
• Database
• Multidimensional Statistical Database BME
• Cidades_at_
• Interactive Maps
• Municipalities Profile
• Aggregated Statistical Tables (SIDRA)

12
The Web page contents

• Thematic Channels
• Brazil in Synthesis
• IBGE 7 to 12
• IBGE Teen

Millennium Development Goals
13
The Web page contents

• Products and Services
• Library
• IBGE Catalog
• Virtual Shop
• IBGE text mode
• IBGE Wap
• Electronic Questionnaires

14
The Web page contents

• Historical Contents
• Brazil 500 Years of Settlement
• 20th Century Statistics
• Institutional Memory

15
The Web page contents

• Projects and Entities
• Statistical Classifications (Concla)
• European Community and Mercosur
• Confest/Confege (National Meeting of Producers
  and Users)
• ENCE (National School of Statistics Sciences)

16
The Web page contents

• Download 35,060 files are available for
  download.
• Data are available for download at the Web site
  at the moment when they are published.
• Dissemination calendars on the website in advance
  
• Two kinds of calendars put on the website in the
  end of each year for the next year
• one shows release dates of the annual and special
  surveys
• other covers the regular monthly and quarterly
  surveys
• Any alteration to a pre-announced release date
  being made public as early as possible

17
The first steps

• Our homepage users are
• (a) Statistical information users, such as
  researchers, consultants and managers who need
  statistical information for their activities,
  through publications, tables or microdata
• (b) Users who will pass on the information
  journalists, publishers, specialized publication
  authors
• (c) Occasional users, that is, those who
  eventually search for information students,
  professors or those who accidentally or because
  of curiosity accessed our site.

18
Comments

• In a country with continental dimensions such as
  Brazil, composed by 27 states and 5,561
  municipalities, there were few media which
  received our releases or any communication at
  all, except those ones which came from news
  agencies.
• In Brazil, 16,3 of the households have computer
  and only 12,2 have web access in their
  households.
• Nowadays, the access to information is immediate,
  which helps to direct it to thousands of means of
  communication, not only releasing it in
  journalistic language but also providing all the
  information which is being published.

19
The Current Scenario

• Every year since its implementation, in 1995,
  IBGE is among the three finalists of the best
  Brazilian governmental homepages, either in the
  public election or in the specialists, and, in
  some years, it has conquered the first place
  award.
• Publications The quantity of pages and tables
  of all paper publications have been decreasing.
• Publications have an enclosed CD-ROM presenting
  more tables than those in the printed volume.
• We have created a public university library
  service network which receives our printed
  publications and CD-ROM and intend to expand it
  with the private universities service network.

20
The Current Scenario

• There is an effort to improve the communication
  with the public through the publications,
  inserting more texts and explanatory graphs for
  general understanding.

21
The Current Scenario

• Digital media products - A software to explore
  spatial data (Estatcart) was developed, and it
  has been well accepted by the users. A specific
  database has been generated for this software.
• Training We have developed courses called
  Digital Tools Workshop. In these courses, the
  principles for the use of the main Institution
  tools for data search have been passed on either
  to the Government, or the private sector.

22
Relationship with the Press

• In 2005, IBGE produced 169 releases distributed
  to the press.
• IBGE has a mailing-list of 425 journalists of
  different media in the country and overseas. The
  list is periodically updated and classified by
  editor.
• From August to December 2005, IBGE had 1086
  attendance press
• The relationship with the press is made through
• Courses for journalists, where researchers
  explain surveys, their range and limitations for
  a more efficient work, and
• There is a way to previously release to the press
  the structure of the survey results. The press
  has an agreement with IBGE to keep such
  information secret up to the publishing day,
  enabling to prepare more elaborated and
  reasonable subjects.

23

• Since 2000, embargoed access to the annual and
  special surveys has been given to accredited
  journalists
• it is essential to provide them with a period of
  time to assimilate and understand the data
• to provide for informed comment at the time of
  release. These releases take even entire blocks
  of the main television news, headlines and whole
  newspaper pages.
• Embargoed access cannot apply to regular monthly
  and quarterly statistics releases

Releasing statistics under embargoed
24

• According to the regulations of the Ministery of
  Planning
• Regular monthly and quarterly statistics are
  delivered 24 hours in advance to the Minister and
  at 730 to authorities identified that have
  privileged access (2 hours in advance)
• The list of authorities is publicized at IBGE
  website
• The authorities belonging to the list must
  observe the confidentiality of the information
  until IBGE releases the information
• Annual and special statistics are delivered 48
  hours in advance to the Minister and released for
  press and internet at 1000

Releasing statistics privileged early access
25
Questions

• What are the practices relating to release
  statistics
• under embargo to the press?
• and privileged early access to the government?

26
On going projects

• To publish the results through Cross Media
  technology
• Media center
• Context Search
• The whole site in English

27
Popularization of statistical information

• Today it is possible to access channels such as
  Cidades_at_ and SIDRA through Google Earth,
  directing to a larger and more diversified
  public, information about the country and tools
  to manipulate such data.