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Creating Highly Interactive Websites for the Dissemination of Statistics

This paper discusses the paradigm shift to create interactive websites for statistical data dissemination, using open-source libraries and innovative coding techniques.

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Creating Highly Interactive Websites for the Dissemination of Statistics

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  1. Creating Highly Interactive Websites for the Dissemination of Statistics MSIS2012 Mark Elbert, U.S. Energy Information Administration

  2. Why this paper? Culmination of an 18-month paradigm shift Started with simple jQuery slide panels Added interactive charting with Highcharts Web server coding web browser coding Jan 2012: tasked to create a new dissemination platform for EIA’s electricity statistics in 10 weeks! The results of this project surprised me and I want to share what we learned Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  3. Backing up a step… Google launched the second browser war and Chrome set the pace Everyone had to keep up (IE9 is 10x faster than IE8) Open Source code libraries sprouted like mushrooms in this new computing environment, allowing desired effects and functionality to be quickly to a project speed + standardization + open source = new Internet Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  4. EIA’s Electricity Data Browser Programmed by two developers from conception to launch in 10 weeks: query 50,000 electricity aggregate time series with drill down to 70,000 electricity generation plant time series select monthly, quarterly, or annual views advanced grouping and filtering maps and user controlled charting innovative help system That’s a lot of functionality for a 10 week project! Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  5. Open-source libraries were 61% of code base: Many of these libraries did not exist even 2 years ago jQuery is the standard help library Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  6. Electricity Data Browser demo: http://www.eia.gov/beta/enerdat/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&fuel=vvg&geo=g&sec=g&charted=2-3-5-7-8 Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  7. Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  8. Pros and Cons of this dissemination paradigm Advantages Faster development cycles. Data layers can be republished as an Application Programming Interfaces (API) Solve problems; don’t build plumbing Third-party libraries are free or very low-cost Reduce publishing costs if large numbers of files and web products are replaced with fewer web applications Improve the findability of statistics by offering a single interface to browse, filter, and find information that would otherwise be spread out among multiple publications Create the highly interactive, rich user experiences web users are coming to expect Disadvantages Significantly higher developer skill sets Too many third-party libraries can make maintenance a challenge Third-party libraries without strong developer communities may be buggy or lack solid documentation. Versioning and updating libraries Cross-browser support Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  9. Getting started creating highly interactive websites Start simple and build skills Master jQuery Pick an interactive charting library Share Mark Elbert MSIS2012

  10. U.S. Energy Information Administration home page | www.eia.gov Beta test pages | www.eia.gov/beta Autochart | www.eia.gov/beta/autochart_examples URLs • For more information and code, contact : • Mark Elbert • mark.elbert@eia.gov Mark Elbert MSIS2012

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