Emerging Trends in Data Dissemination

Alan Smith OBEONS Data Visualisation Centre, United Kingdom

@theboysmithy

Hal Varian, Google

• “The ability to take data - to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it's going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades...

•Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.”

“the sexy job in the next 10 years will be

statisticians”

Emerging trends in web content

More visual, more personal, more social

data-driven!

“Open and Mobile”

30%traffic to media websites from tablet/mobile device

The rise and rise of mobile devices

•Apple has sold over 500 million iOS devices (2013)

•In the UK, 71% of 16-24 year olds online via mobile devices (2011)

•45% of all UK internet users went online via mobile devices (2011)

Producing mobile-friendly content

•There are two principal content routes:

1.Mobile apps - proprietary applications, authored for each type of device:

•Apple AppStore, Google Play, Amazon apps etc

2.Web apps - applications for any web browser, based on the HTML5 digital toolkit

The Digital Toolkit

•HTML5/CSS3

•jQuery/jQueryUI

•d3js

•Modernizr

•Let’s look at some examples...

Emerging trends in the role of the statistics producer

Dissemination driven by an API - the U.S.A.

•“The [Census] Bureau wants to be a source for mobile data, not an app builder”

• Steven Buckner, director Center for New Media & Promotion, US Census Bureau

A case for ‘just producing the numbers’?

The value of statistical commentary - UK

• In the view of the Statistics Authority, the public has a right to know the statisticians’ understanding of the messages from the statistics, just as they have a right to the data itself.  It is common, and proper, for statisticians in government departments to brief policy colleagues on the substance of the statistics.  That knowledge should, as a matter of principle, be shared more widely.”

• (The Value of Statistical Commentary, 23rd July 2010)

“Among the Code of Practice requirements are that producers of official statistics should prepare full and frank commentary and analysis that aid interpretation including:

• information on the quality and reliability of statistics in relation to the range of potential uses• information on methods, procedures and classifications• factual information about the policy or operational context• formats for the presentation of statistics in graphs, tables and maps that enhance clarity, interpretability and consistency…

1.by providing mechanisms for dynamic access to the underlying data (data warehouse and API) to allow others to build apps using our data

2.for the content we do make, syndicate it to increase outreach and impact

...so, how can we keep statistics.gov relevant ?

statistics.gov...

•It is not the world’s sexiest URL...

Content syndication - UK Census example

1,000%increase in page views compared to traffic via statistics.gov.uk

“Visual, personal, social...”

Thank you/Gracias/Obrigado

Alan Smith OBEONS Data Visualisation Centre, United Kingdom

@theboysmithy