EUROSTAT
Directorate B: Statistical methods and tools, Dissemination
Unit B-6: Dissemination /
DISSEMINATION WORKING GROUP
Luxembourg, 23 & 24 November 2006
Agenda point 5g : Questionnaire
Member States position on Corporation projects
LUXEMBOURG
BELGIUM
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
RSS-feeds: we have no qualitative feedback from our own rss-feed, only that the success is relatively limited, some 90 web sites have incorporated our feed (which is not that bad either, given the specialised information it contains).
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
Not relevant
Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
We are still in the exploratory stage, which means we know what we want but we haven't started yet (resources lacking) and we don't even know if what we want is feasible and how; apparently, judging from a quick web tour, nobody yet has realised what we want to do: for the Dutch-language pages on our statbel website, presenting the 'frame' (headings) in Dutch, coupled with the Eurostat figures; the frame remains stable, the figures should be refreshed whenever new data are available (as automatically as possible). For our French-, English- and German-language pages we can use the same approach or we could just deeplink to the Eurostat table (the difference being that the table is either on our or on the Eurostat site). If this is possible, something else becomes possible too: presenting the Estonian, Greek etc. data in Dutch etc. if a cross-European data presentationformatisagreedupon.
We seem to be rather more ambitious than rich in people/resources!
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
We are very much in favour, it would be a big help in cross-language searching; the advantage of a project such as this: it hasn't to be complete to be useful, any number of items is better than nothing at all and missing languages are not a problem either (if you want your language in, just do it); so let's get started. One consideration: co-operation and co-ordination between same-language member states is needed (and should be stimulated by Eurostat):IE/UK, NL/BE, EL/CY, BE/LU/FR, DE/AT/LU and ?
CZECH REPUBLIC
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
DENMARK
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
Statistics Denmark has provided its users with a number of RSS feeds since August 2005. The RSS feeds are only available in Danish. Most of feeds related to calendars will be available in English no later than the end of October 2006.
I September 2006 we provided a total of 29642 RSS feeds to different homepages and feed readers. Do to the nature of most RSS readers we do not know the real number of users.
We have made no marketing efforts regarding our RSS’ services except for placing an RSS logo on the front page of A short written orientation was circulated to the staff of Statistics Denmark when the service was launched. Since the launch no customers have asked about our RSS services, so we have a significant number of users but absolutely no support enquiries. This seems to underpin the assumption that RSS is used either by information professionals or by people who are highly it literate. From our RSS orientation page we have now added a link to Eurostat’s RSS overview page.
As version 7 of the Microsoft Internet Explorer with its embedded RSS reader becomes available we expect the use of RSS to increase very significantly.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
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Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Statistics Denmark will ultimately follow the example of Statistics Norway and include Eurostat predefined tables in our website, as a mean of providing access to European statistics to our users. However we will not start the project before all tables are available in SDMX-ML and Eurostat has prepared the operational manual for the use of the tables, as mentioned in the minutes of the meeting of the DWG on 4/5 May 2006.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
In principle we find the concept of the common keyword system most interesting. We will await the report on subject which will be prepared by Eurostat as mentioned in the minutes of the meeting of the DWG on 4/5 May 2006, until taking further action. Having examined the list of keyword we find that efforts should be made to create a subset of the list that only contains keywords with direct relevance to NSI’s and their users.
It is our experience that a fixed list of words or an A-Z is a most efficient navigational tool both for experienced and inexperienced users. However a large number of irrelevant terms will make it both difficult and confusing for the inexperienced user. We would therefore highly recommend a smaller, leaner subset of keywords.
However overall we find it most fruitful to be able to index our English content on using a controlled set of keywords common to the European Statistical System, and will most likely due so in the future.
GERMANY
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
ESTONIA
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
Concerning RSS we plan toimplement it next year.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
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Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
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Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
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GREECE
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
We are on the way of implementing the RSS system with our latest news. We consider this to be done in the following month.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
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Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
The availability of predefined tables through our site is a very difficult task for us, as a lot of personnel and workis needed, and we are not sure we can follow at this moment.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
The Common Keyword System is also under consideration as we already use an indexing server and our programmers cannot at this moment interfere. Though, as we face problems with the existing system, we should come to the common system, but I consider this will also take some time.
SPAIN
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
The experience of the RSS service is positive since we have not received complaints from users in relation with this service.
The number of accesses to our RSS files from the users are around 75.000 in a month.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
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Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
The intention of the INE-Spain is to export all our tables to a XML format. This will be executed when the currently doubts on the SDMX standard, version 2, are solved.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
We are in favour of the use of the Common Keyword System in our web. I was wondering if the translation will be assumed by the Commission or by the respective countries.
FRANCE
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
RSS initiative. We have made progress in our "technical" study of this topic. I think we will be able to propose RSS feeds on INSEE's website (on 3 or 4 items : what's new on the portal, main economic indicators, publications and press releases -the last one only in French at the moment-), if possible before the end of 2006. But the officialdecision hasnot yet been taken in the office.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
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Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Predefined tables. We intend to present more international (and particularly European) data on our site. We will examine the opportunity and the possibility of integrating some of these tables.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
Common keywords. Presently we use a set of about 200 keywords. We will check if they are included in the Eurostat list. Thenwe will perhaps adjust our list or propose new words to the largerone.
IRELAND
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
There is an RSS feed for each of the currently 46 statistical products onthe Main Dissemination Service accessed through the Database Direct part onCSO website. Further to this RSS feeds there are two other feeds of highvalue to users.Feed 1. RSS feed to twenty most recently updated datasets on the mainDissemination ServiceFeed 2. RSS feed to latest developments on Main Dissemination Service.(ie., if Consumer prices post more detailed data on the Service it will be
anounced here).
Future work
We would see possible future work being geared towards two areas1. Implementing RSS feeds such that a user could subscribe to a Search onCSO Data Dissemination Service. ie., if they subscribed to a searcjh onConsumer prices, they would receive an alert anytime a dataset withConsumer Prices in the meatadat for the dataset was updated.2. Subscribing to a user list of customised tables. As users will in futurebe able to store customised queries in this service we foresee a demand forusers to have their own RSS feeds for each list of customised tables.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
We publish our CSO website metadata to the Irish Public ServiceMetadata Standard (IPSMS). I understand that the Common Keyword System isat pilot project status in Eurostat with three member states. There havebeen no discussions in-house within e-Government re this topic.
ITALY
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
CYPRUS
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
Concerning the availability of Predefined Tables with Community statistics in XML format:
(3)Please inform us about your position towards taking over such tables in your Internet Site, for example if you are interested, the tables you intend to integrate, the status of your project, etc.
Concerning the Common Keyword System:
(4)Please tell us the status of your internal considerations and reflections with respect to this topic.
LATVIA
Concerning the collection of News Items via RSS:
(1)For those NSIs which already participate in the RSS initiative please tell us about your experience with the service, for example number of accesses and user reactions, etc.
(2)Those who do not yet participate please inform us about the status of your implementation efforts.
The RSS is on agend hopffully will be implented till the end of year. Thereason for delay is that we are working on new version of website and theRSS feeds will be implemented in new site.