Professor Bo Sundgren Stockholm University Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) Affiliated with Dalarna University, Department of Informatics Board member of Gapminder, www.gapminder.org Chief Editor, International Journal of Public Information Systems (IJPIS), www.ijpis.net bosund@dsv.su.se, bo.sundgren@gmail.com, bsu@du.se https://sites.google.com/site/bosundgren/

1. Citizen-centric access to statistics
Bo Sundgren
September 2011

2. Summary
•
The project investigates the possibilities to define an easy-to-use, powerful,
and flexible standard interface for communication of statistical data and
metadata between the dissemination databases of statistics producers
(statistical agencies) and citizen-centric applications, developed by
entrepreneurs, analysts, media, or by citizens themselves.
•
In line with the intentions of EU:s PSI Directive to make public sector
information (e.g. statistical data) easily available for citizens and businesses in
a practical and inexpensive way.
•
A consortium consisting of members from Estonia, Iceland, and Sweden will
run the project. The members of the consortium represent all three
dimensions of a Triple Helix constellation:
–
Academia: Stockholm University, leading the project and providing general knowledge
–
Government: Statistical agencies, producing and providing official statistics
–
Business: Citizen-centric entrepreneurs, media, and analysts (think tanks)
•
An open network has been created, welcoming anyone, even outside the
Nordic-Baltic countries to participate in and contribute to the project.
•
Three major workshops have been organised in Estonia, Sweden, and Iceland
during 2011.
•
A website and a blog has been created and used extensively:
–
Project website: https://sites.google.com/site/accesstostatistics/

3. By the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSsxUbdCLg&feature=player_embedd
Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for Digital Agenda, on Thursday 22
Sept 2011 flagged that the Commission is preparing a proposal to force
member states to open up government data to the public for free. The
proposal plans to make it easier to access government data:
"By the end of November I will be proposing to my fellow
Commissioners that we adopt the next steps on reuse of public sector
information and a proposal for an improved directive. I want
requirements to be more encompassing and specifications improved. In
particular we should be looking at the way data is disclosed to formats
and the way data licences operate to make reuse straight forward in
practice. We shall also be looking at charging regimes because expensive
data isn't open data."

4. Major findings and conclusions
•
Statistical agencies are rather good at presenting official statistics in a citizen-
friendly way, using their websites and providing tools for downloading
•
However, each statistical agency presents its own statistics in its own
production-centric way, without much coordination with other producers.
•
In contrast, users of statistics, e.g. citizens, businesses, entrepreneurs,
media, and analysts, want to combine and analyse statistics from different
sources in a problem-oriented and usage-centric way.
•
This becomes very complex, time-consuming, and expensive, when statistical
data are not provided in standardised ways.
•
A growing number of users of statistics want to download statistical data and
metadata in rather simple, raw, and standardised form, and to develop, use,
and provide their own user-friendly tools for further processing, analysis, and
presentation of the data (in line with the intentions of EU:s PSI Directive).
•
The project has summarised important and typical needs of users of statistical
data and metadata by describing a limited number of use cases.
•
The project has identified a number of useful standard formats and tools for
providing statistical data and metadata, which already exist, but which need to
be made more interoperable within a common, user-friendly framework.
•
A natural next step of development is being formulated: a workbench and

5. A handshake at the Seminar on innovative approcaches to
turning statistics into knowledge, organised in Stockholm
26-27 May 2008 by OECD and Statistics Sweden
www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum/statknowledge
Kjell Jansson, Director General of Professor Hans Rosling, Founder and
Statistics Sweden, 2006-2008: Chairman of Gapminder Foundation,
”I agree with you, Hans. We will www.gapminder.org:
fulfil your wishes.” ”We want all your data, objective, well documented,
and with your quality stamp on them – in raw form –
for us to analyse and present in ways that make them
interesting for citizens, students, and decision-
makers.”
Other entrepreneurs and innovators associated with the project :
The factlab: Peter & Mike Andersson, http://www.thefactlab.com/
ncomva: Mikael Jern & collaborators, http://www.ncomva.com/
Google: Google Public Data Explorer, http://www.google.com/publicdata/admin
Gov2u: Government to you, an NGO, http://www.gov2u.org/
Izwe: Share opinions, make a difference, http://www.izwe.com/
Prognoz: Business intelligence – made simple, http://www.prognoz.com/en/index.php

6. CITIZENS ENTREPRENEURS ANALYSTS JOURNALISTS POLITICIANS
STATISTICS USER/PROVIDER INTERACTIVE WORKBENCH & TOOLBOX
WEBSITES
WEBSITES
INTERFACING  Get an overview of available data sources and tools, links and explanations
INTERFACING
OTHER  Specify request (data&metadata contents and format)
OTHER TOOLS
DATA/METADATA  Specify processing function (no processing, presentation/analysis function)
AND TOOLBOXES
SOURCES  Specify delivery mode (user at terminal, file download, API delivery)
 Specify update regime (subscribed automatical, on demand)
DATA & DATA & DATA &
METADATA METADATA METADATA
(stored in standard (stored in standard (stored in standard
or user-defined or user-defined or user-defined
formats) formats) formats)
ACCESS/ANALYSIS ACCESS/ANALYSIS ACCESS/ANALYSIS
MODULES MODULES MODULES
(set of services) (set of services) (set of services)
LOCAL SHARED
PUBLIC
DATABASES DATABASES
DATABASES
(single (systems of
(in the cloud)
organisations) organisations)