an innovative way to provide easy access to un system data ccsa conference on data quality for...
TRANSCRIPT
An innovative way to provideeasy access to UN System data
CCSA Conference on Data Quality for International Organizations
Stefan Schweinfest and Mary Jane Holupka, United Nations Statistics Division
UNdata and Quality (2)
Introduction
UNdata and accessibility Searching
Data presentation
Customization possibilities for users
Metadata
Addressing other quality dimensions: relevance, accuracy, comparability, timeliness
Challenges ahead
UNdata – Introduction (3)
60+ years of data collection Data stored in numerous databases: different web
interfaces; different access and dissemination policies
Driving force for UNdata’s development – reduce fragmentation;
“Statistics as a Public Good” Project – with Statistics Sweden, Gapminder Foundation, financial support from the Swedish Intl Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
Provide easier access, increase dissemination, use and understanding of int’l stats, free of charge
UNdata – Accessibility (4)
available free of charge, no need to subscribe or register; one interface from which all underlying datasets can be
searched and browsed; easily searchable by either using the search box or clicking on
a particular dataset name and browsing its contents; requires few clicks to get where one wants to go; presents data clearly, in simple tabular presentation formats,
which can then be customized and further refined by sorting, filtering, including/excluding columns and pivoting;
provides various download formats (xml or value separated for data received in relational database format, or excel tables if the original data were provided in that format);
Understandability/clarity links to or provides relevant accompanying metadata.
Bringing Information to the World
Quick facts
16 Databases
4 Table sets
55 Million records
192 Country profiles
6 Glossaries
UNdata partners
UNdata – Coverage (6)
UNdata – Search by country name (7)
Search by keyword; default data presentation (8)
Customized table after filtering, sorting and pivoting; download formats (9)
UNdata Wiki – Metadata and more (10)
UNdata – Administration tool to help assess relevance (11)
UNdata in the future (12)
More data, more partners More explanatory metadata More timely updates More search fine-tuning More visualization tools More languages More databases included, perhaps from
countries’ NSOs
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