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Moving into the 21 st Century: The IMF’s Transition to Web Dissemination of Its Statistical Data

Moving into the 21 st Century: The IMF’s Transition to Web Dissemination of Its Statistical Data. ESDS International Annual Conference London, November 27 2006. The Current Situation. “Traditional” products in print & CD-ROM ♦ Balance of Payments Statistics

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Moving into the 21 st Century: The IMF’s Transition to Web Dissemination of Its Statistical Data

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  1. Moving into the 21st Century:The IMF’s Transition to WebDissemination of Its Statistical Data ESDS International Annual Conference London, November 27 2006

  2. The Current Situation “Traditional” products in print & CD-ROM ♦ Balance of Payments Statistics ♦ Direction of Trade Statistics ♦ Government Finance Statistics ♦ International Financial Statistics Supporting statistical materials in print and the web ♦Manuals and Guides ♦ Pamphlets ♦ Official Reports

  3. The Current Situation A mix of “Online” products, different formats ♦IFS (à la the CD-ROM) ♦ Static online tables: ♦ International Reserves ♦ Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey ♦Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves Coming soon online: ♦Balance of Payments Statistics ♦Direction of Trade Statistics

  4. The Current Situation The challenges: • How to shift from a print-centric world to a web world and provide a coherent offering of data, medadata, and supporting information? • How to communicate rather than disseminate statistics to many different audiences? • How to shift from “output driven” to “outcome driven” dissemination? • How to balance commitment to the public good with the need to generate revenue?

  5. First Steps... Spring 2005: Two studies commissioned: ♦ Qualitative Usership Research of traditional products (by Research Perspectives) ♦ Review of Best Practices for Web Dissemination of Data (by Sabatier Consulting) Fall 2005:Some hard lessons learned. Research indicated that users found our products: ♦ Not especially user-friendly ♦ Difficult to search and navigate ♦ A lack of information on definitions and changes ♦ Print publications were required to understand data

  6. Next Steps... How should we begin to address these issues? A multi-step approach that has involved many contributors: ♦ The Statistics Department held a retreat to consider new strategies and how to change the business model. A reorganization of the department is in progress. ♦ Strengthened partnership between data providers and the External Relations Department. ♦ An FTP site introduced for data redistributors to ensure timely availability of data. ♦StatisticsQuery@imf.org introduced to improve responsiveness. Remedy software adopted to assign and track queries. A query library created to ensure consistency of responses.

  7. Next Steps... Lessons learned from reviews of best practices and from colleagues in statistical offices: ♦ Develop a web environment focusing on themes and the tasks the users need to perform and offering visual representations. ♦ Cross-reference print and electronic products. ♦ Provide comprehensive metadata in clear English (“the democratization of metadata”). ♦ Provide robust search capabilities based on everyday terms as well as expert taxonomies. ♦ Survey users regularly. ♦ Offer helpful customer service.

  8. Next Steps... Challenges ahead: ♦ Designing a user-friendly and user-centric web site. ♦ Reviewing content to meet user needs. ♦ Organizing and determining the extent of metadata needed. ♦ Strengthening client support. ♦ Selecting a data delivery technology. ♦ Developing marketing, education, and revenue strategies.

  9. National Sources ICS National Sources ICS Statistics IFS Area Depts 10+ countries Research WEO A Vision for the Economic Data Warehouse and Future Dissemination DATAWAREHOUSE EXISTING DATA & METADATA Plus additional metadata DATA SEARCH & ELABORATION Rationalized Databases, Gaps Identified Web Access to Data Warehouse Data (disseminate as appropriate) IMF.ORG Statistics Portal Validated Data Metadata • Searchable by: • Topic • Country • Source • Reports Publications External Data OECDMEI INTLINE CD ROM Metadata

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