ENABLING DATA COMPILATION

FROM COUNTRIES USING SDMX

Edgardo Greisinggreising@ilo.org

MSIS 2013 – International Organizations Session

Objectives in data compilation:

Highest response rate from the countries

Minimum delay between compilation and

publication

Improved overall quality of the data published

Avoid duplication of efforts

Reduce the burden to data providers (countries).

Rationale

Using SDMX for Electronic Data Interchange is a way

What we need for EDI:

Two parties

An agreed protocol SDMX

Good conceptual knowledge of that protocol i.e.

SDMX

Software tools to generate the SDMX data flows

A database where to pull the data from

Rationale

Many data providers do not have a time series repository

Others have the repository but no resources as to implement SDMX

Supporting SDMX at the IO side is not enough

The data provider should have a tool that…Is very easy to install and maintainIs supported on free software platforms Counts with good documentation, tutorials, trainingTakes the table’s structure (cubes) by importing a

DSDHas an integrated data discovery and visualization

toolHas a full screen editor to enter/modify data and

descriptive metadata (including footnotes)Provides different formats for downloading/uploading

tables: Excel, csv format, pdf (reports) and SDMXSupports data dissemination thru web services

and/or downloaded files 

Requirements

Some products that could work:CountryStat - FAO.Stat - OECD/SIS-CCFusion toolsuite - Metadata Technology Ltd SDMX-RI – Eurostat (no data repository)SDMX-RI +Dataloader – Istat

A different approach:Making “SDMX-enabled” common reporting tools

used to compute and disseminate the indicators: Stata, SPSS, R, SAS

Must include importing DSDWhat about descriptive metadata? 

Possible solutions

At a glanceRequirement CountryStat .Stat Fusion Toolsuite SDMX-RI SDMX-RI +

Dataloader

Developer FAO OECD – SIS-CCMetadata

TechnologyEurostat Istat

Governance/Deployment experience

Yes Yes No Yes No

Documentation, tutorials, training

Yes ? ? Yes ?

Multidimensional cubes No Yes Yes Yes Yes

Interactive cube structure definition

? Yes Yes Yes Yes

Define cube structure by DSD No No Yes Yes Yes

Data discovery & visualization Yes Yes Yes No No

Online data & metadata editor No No No No No

Descriptive metadata management

Limited Yes ? Yes ?

SDMX exports/web services No Yes Yes Yes Yes

Other formats exports Yes Yes Yes Converter Converter

Commercial status Free Collab. Community $ Free ?

Different approach?Other suggestions of tools?What’s next?

Discussion…