Statistical Publication System in Switzerland. The development of OECD statistical products.

1. Statistical Publication System in Switzerland.The development of OECD statistical products. Armin GrossenbacherOECDTask Force, February 2007

2. This paper intends to make a contribution to the OECD‘s discussion on the development of statistical products. • It does this from the background of the statistical publication system in Switzerland and experience gained in this field.

3. OECD Discussion Points • Target audiences • Role of central statistical warehouse • Role of print publications • Differentiation of views, electronic products for different audiences • Links between products • How to make dissemination as local as possible • New electronic or print publications • Evaluating usage and success of products

4. OECD Discussion Points (1) Target Audiences

5. Main Groups of Content Users • Based on a broad marketing study, the FSO has established three main groups of content users: • ■ General Interest (Tourists) • ■ Business Interest (Farmers) • ■ Research Interest (Miners) • These three groups allow the content we offer to be structured in a quick and simple manner. Example: The Webportal follows this three tier model (thematic navigation, DB predefined files, DB interactive tables). • These groups may be structured in more detail and combined with traditional target groups like government, enterprieses, media, general public.

6. Organizing the content for users: taxonomy of 21 first-level themes • The FSO has set up a thematic framework in order to organize the content of its publishing activities, i.e. its articles. This taxonomy of 21 first-level themes is used for all media. All • publications follow these themes, the Statistical Yearbook has its chapters organized along these themes and the Statistics Portal uses it as well. • In all content offers users are systematically guided by these consistent and homogenous topical fields. • We call these themes or topical fields „Products“

7. Organizing the content: taxonomy of 21 first-level themes or products • 0 Statistical underpinnings and overviews 1 Population 2 Territory and environment 3 Employment and income from employment 4 National economy5 Prices 6 Industry and services7 Agriculture and forestry 8 Energy 9 Construction and housing 10 Tourism • 11 Transport and communications 12 Money, banks, insurance companies13 Social Security14 Health 15 Education and science16 Culture, information society, sports17 Politics18 Public administration and finance19 Crime and criminal justice20 Economic and social situation of the population 21 Sustainable development, regional and international disparities

8. Was? Für wen? Instrumente Target Audiences Planning the information offer Planning the information offer Main offers for specific target groups(Strategic business fields) Which target groups? (Marketing model) Polit.Mandate Which content / offer? (Products) Available ressourcesPersonnel and finances Multiannualprogramme Planning the output Portfolio of articlesAnnual publication programme Annual objectives Marketing Evaluation, Performance indicators

9. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (1) Target Audiences Who are we reaching today? Who should we be targeting as newusers?- OECD specific, depending on organizations mandate and strategic business fields (international comparisons, indicators). Why lay audiences?- FSO: Our system classifies users (see above) and helps building user oriented offers (see below). More evaluating and more marketing activities are needed. Actually we are planning to target more customers paying for our offers (business and research interest via individual services) and to introduce online advertising.For lay audiences: Very simple works best and creates a door to other statistical offers:http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/dienstleistungen/forumkids/01.html and http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/international/laenderportraets.html

10. OECD Discussion Points (2) Central statistical data warehouseThe role of paper publications Differentiation of viewsThe interaction between productsHow to make dissemination localProposals for new publications .

11. Articles and Article Profiles • We call the information units deliverded to users „Articles“, for instance a print publication, a press release, a web presentation. • In order to organize these articles offered to users we distinguish between "information types" or "article profiles„ to meet the distinct information needs of the three user groups. This allows us to define these "article profiles": 1 Popular short presentations 2 Overviews / Reference works 3 Studies / Analysis 4 News services 5 Individual data services (FSO services to users)

12. Article Models • For each of these "article profiles" we further define a limited number of information containers. These containers, classified along the three dissemination media "print", "offline (CD ROM, DVD)" and "online", provide information producers with a set of clear rules for information delivery and also help organize the output production according to well defined standards. We call such containers „Article Models“

13. Article Profiles and Article Models 1 2 3 4 5 Target Groups: General Interest Business Interest Research Interest

14. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (2) Central statistical data warehouse What are the best practices to get the most out of the central data warehouse? Such a system is THE dream of a statistics disseminator. It is the non redundant source of all articles in all media. In FSO we are working at such a datawarehouse and have some concepts how to link it with the articles we already deliver, especially in introducing automated workflows from datawarehouse to article.

15. Editorial Guidelines • Editorial guidelines define which article profiles and models should be prioritized in the three media: print, offline and online.

16. Editorial Guidelines: Print (1) • In the shift process from print to electronic publishing print publications must be reduced to • o a core offer by product: • - a Popular Short Presentation of the most important results (leporello) • - an Overview Publication holding the results of a theme: pro-duct flagship publication (standard publication text, graphs, some tables and eventually more tables on CD or by links to Online) • - a continuous presentation of the News in a product (press releases, FSO in focus, newsletters)

17. Editorial Guidelines: Print (2) • o eventually an additional offer by product: • - Analysis or Studies to important issues in political and social life (standard publication text, graphs, ev. tables on CD) • Reference work publications (table volumes) figure no longer as a print article model. They are replaced by online article models (Encyclopedia, Online Database). An example: All the printed table publications in the product „Prices“ will be replaced 2007 by a searchable database consisting of predefined tables (Miniature Encyclopedia produced out of the Encyclopedia) and one flagship publication (print, standard publication).

18. Editorial Guidelines: Print (3) • Print articles are sold as physical copies and delivered for free as pdf files via a searchable database (Encyclopedia and Publications Database). • More and more the print article models are no longer printed by FSO but directly by the users or on demand for the users (print on demand).Original print article models become so a kind of electronic article models.

19. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (3) The role of paper publications Is there still a user need for regularly produced compilations of tables?Paper publications comprise more than table compilations. There are article models like leporellos, standard publications (text, graphs and some tables) or press releases without lots of tables. Such publications in the field (article profiles) of short presentations, overwievs, analysis are still necessary. Last but not least in order to stay physically present in the target audiences (PR effect).

20. Editorial Guidelines: Offline • CD-ROM or DVD as a Reference work comprising a collection of detailed information (tables, texts, graphs), added for instance to a flagship publication.

21. Editorial Guidelines: Online • Online is by far the most comprehensive offer. • The first tier (for general interest) provides chapters such as THEMES, REGIONAL, INTERNATIONAL to publish short thematic descriptions (Panoramas), small tables, texts, graphs, maps and downloads (press releases, publications) and also to access metadata databases. • In the second tier (for business interest) the huge Statistical Encyclopedia gives access to predefined tables and a lot of other files. • In the third tier (for research interest) the online database lets users build their own tables.

22. What users get • The publication system with its editorial guidelines structures the access to statistical information for the users and gives producers a clear framework and also assures clear workflows. • How can users access to statistics? • Main entrance: Web portal!

23. What users get Homepage Statistics Switzerland First structuration by topics and news

24. What users get • The news structured by • Press releases- Agenda- Publications- Newsletters- Events- Jobs- Tender- Projects

25. What users get For each and every topican identical structuration- Overview - Subthemes (with data and analysis) - Reference (look up press releases, publications, links to offers for farmers and miners: predefined tables, interactive tabulation) - Metadata (look up sources, nomenclatures, definitions)

26. What users get Direct access to - geographic information (regional, internationalwith tables and maps, atlas)

27. What users get Direct access to the Databases: Infothek (farmers, miners)- Predefined tables- Interactive tabu- lation - Publications cata- logue- Sources- Definitions- Nomenclatures

28. What users get • The publications catalogue lists all articles according to the 4 print article models: Leporellos, standard publications, FSO in focus, Newsletters.

29. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (4) Electronic products for different audiences? Which audiences need what services? Does one-size fit all?No.The (growing) online offer needs to be structured:- by themes- by depth of information (overviews, predefined tables, interactive tabulation)- by individual filtering

30. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (5) How to make dissemination as local to users as possible? Dissemination via websites that target audiences use regularly as opposed to visit a singe website Some strategies: 1) Building up an (inter)national Statistics Portal as a general/global entrance point2) Introducing statistics in well visited local websites, be this websites of NSI‘s or others via syndication (RSS …), web services3) Facilitating global statistics search by harmonizing and using (and translating) common keywords (semantic web!)

31. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (6) Proposals for new electronic/paper publications Articles users are waiting for, ideas: 1) Individualization: Specific theme packages produced out of the statistics portal: eDossiers (web to go), individual configuration of the website (myStatistics via predefined filters/searches) 2) Ease of access: RSS, more and better visible metadata, keyword access (semantic web), interlinking media and articles 3) Visual access to data (interactive graphs, maps, atlas)http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/17/03/blank/key/2006/03.html ,http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/regionen.html 4) Interactivity/communication: feedback via Blogs

32. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (7) Interaction and links between different products and associated analysis? How best to help readers move between analytical publications, tables and databases? Portal: Product entrance pages (“News and Trends”) give an overwiev (like dedicated pages in EUROSTAT) -> see next slide. DOI as a means to interlink media Categorized search

33. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (7) The first page of every topic (product) gives an introduction and overview to the offer.The leftside navigation always shows the way to more information and metadata

34. OECD Discussion Points (3) Methods of evaluating usage levels/success of different products

35. OECD Discussion PointsSome remarks (8) Methods of evaluating usage levels/success of different products • How can usage been measured? What determines „success“? • Performance indicators we use at FSO: • Print publications: commands and sales by product (output of the business database SAP) • Online: web analysis by Google Analytics • User surveys planned, harmonized with other NSI‘s / Eurostats surveys.

36. Glossary • Products: Groups of thematically organized content SFSO offers to ist users. As an example content about population, prices, health. 21 products, synonym: Theme, topic. • Article: The information unit users can get. For instance a print publication, a CD ROM, a Webpage or a set of webpages. • Article profile: Categories of articles defined by the kind of usage like short presentation, overview, news service • Article model: Types of articles like press release, publication. A.m. are well defined and standardized to make their production clear and easy for all partners.To each article profile belong several article models