SDMX and RDF: Getting Acquainted

SDMX
SDMX (Statistical data and metadata exchange) is a widely accepted standard for communicating data  in the realm of official statistics.
‘SDMX is an initiative to foster standards for the exchange of statistical information. Sponsored by BIS – ECB – EUROSTAT – IMF – OECD – UN – World Bank.’
More and more applications accept and [...]

World Bank Data Visualizer

World bank launches an interactive visualizing tool resembling gapminder, it’s called Data Visualizer.

‘The time series used in Data Visualizer is a subset of 2009 World Development Indicators database. It contains 49 indicators for 209 countries and 18 aggregates from 1960-2007. Data includes social, economic, financial, information & technology, and environmental indicators.’
Tools allow to change the [...]

International Marketing and Output Data Base Conference (IMAODBC) September 14 to 18, 2009

Only for participants. Login and password needed.
The conference is being organised by Statistics Canada. The organising committee may be contacted by email at imaodbc-organising@statcan.gc.ca

“Journalism Needs Data in 21st Century”

This is an interesting summary from ReadWriteWeb about the role of data in media with several fresh innovative examples coming up 2009.  Some of them have already been presented before as posts in this blog. The conclusion is that journalism is data-driven and demands open access to raw data. Data should be transparent and not [...]

A New View of Data.Gov

A New View of Data.Gov (from Google Public Policy Blog)
Friday, July 10, 2009 | 3:09 PM
On May 21, the Obama administration launched Data.gov, a web site that provides access to raw data from federal government agencies. Access to this raw data is useful, but to unleash the power of the data, you need tools for [...]

ReadWriteWeb Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 1: Linked Data

Written by Richard MacManus / July 8, 2009 6:00 AM / 8 Comments
—————————————————————
How Linked Data Relates to The Semantic Web
RWW: Earlier this year you gave an inspiring talk at TED about Linked Data. You described Linked Data as a sea change akin to the [...]

Linked Data is Blooming: Why You Should Care

From ReadWriteWeb:
Written by Richard MacManus / May 18, 2009 3:15 AM
Last week we discussed how the current era of the Web is evolving. One of the concepts we noted was Linked Data, an idea whose time has come in 2009. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, gave a must-view talk at the TED Conference earlier this year [...]

Google examples of US Official Statistics

Source:http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=144522
See public data results

If you’ve ever done research involving large datasets, you know that it can take hours to comb through databases in order to find and analyze trends. Anyone who searches for U.S. unemployment rates or population numbers on Google.com will see relevant statistics and graphs included in their search results. You can even [...]

Google: Tell us about your organization’s public data

Tell us about your organization’s public data
Does your organization produce statistical information or other public data that you would like to make more accessible and easier to use? If so, please tell us about your organization and the data you now make publicly available or would like to make available, including details about its [...]

Semantic Web and Official Statistics

Semantic Web and Official Statistics – an open discussion. Some incomplete  remarks about how to  bring statistics into the Semantic Web ( I am still learning)
Introductory note: Made for machines
Semantic Web or the Web of Data is made first and foremost for machines. ‘In the future the entire web will be one giant tightly interconnected [...]

A platform for public data (1)

Some time ago Amazon web services (AWS) has opened a place for public data sets in its cloud.
‘ AWS is hosting the public data sets at no charge for the community, and like all AWS services, users pay only for the compute and storage they use for their own applications. …  AWS hopes to provide [...]

… and a Happy New Year

Here is the Figure of the (last) Week (2008 ) from Statistics Switzerland

This Flash Widget leads to a chronological overview of the SFO’s press releases, publications and new results over the last days.
See the Figure of the week on Statistics Switzerlands Homepage where the embed functionality works.

Merry Christmas and …

 

ECB Inflation dashboard

The European Central Bank has published an interactive tool that helps analyse inflation developments. In four windows various aspects of inflation development are visualised; several options allow to change the variables and also to switch to a tabular view. Impressive!
Data source: Eurostat and the EU National Statistical Institutes. Data input follows SDMX standards.
‘The dashboard consists [...]

CDATA online

October 27th 2008: ABS’ new interactive data tool is online.
2006 CDATA Online is an online tool which combines information on Australian society from the 2006 Census, with web graphing and mapping capability.
ABS’ new interactive tabulation tool has been developed jointly developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Space-Time Research.
Access is free!

Widget ahoy!

Statistics Switzerland has introduced a widget on its homepage: The Figure of the Week.
This small Flash graphic is linked to more detailed information in the agency’s website.

It’s possible to copy the code and to introduce (embed) it in another webpage, blog etc. The links still leads to Statistics Switzerland’s detailed information.
Every week the widget will [...]

Show us … APIs

An API (application programming interface) is a set of functions … that a … service provides to support requests made by computer programs.
So instead of going to a Statistics Agency, asking for data, downloading these data and inserting them into one’s own application, it would be much easier to request the data directly from the [...]

And the Winner will be …

In 2007 the Project ALEA of Statistics Portugal won the ISI  Award in Statistical Literacy.
‘This award is given every two years in recognition of outstanding, innovative, and influential statistical literacy projects that affect a broad segment of the general public and are fruit of the cooperation of different types of institutions (national statistical office and [...]

Video of OECD-Statistics Sweden Seminar 26-27 May 2008 is ready

Starting with opening speeches of Kjell Jansson, Director General of Statistics Sweden and Enrico Giovannini, Chief Statistician of OECD. Powerpoint-presentations are found at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/32/40293021.pdf

Dissemination, knowledge and innovation

In May 2008 there have been two international meetings about Dissemination of Statitics.
UNECE in Geneva:

See the documents
OECD in Stockholm: Seminar on Innovative Approaches to Turning Statistics into Knowledge

See the details