Invitation to participate in developing Statistical Data on the Web Best Practices

Hi all,

Apologies for cross-posting.

The Semantic Statistics Community Group (SSCG, https://www.w3.org/community/semstats/) is working together with the W3C/OGC Spatial Data on the Web Interest Group (SDWIG, https://www.w3.org/2017/sdwig/) to put together a document on Statistical Data on the Web Best Practices.  We also plan to coordinate with the recently chartered Open Geospatial Consortium Statistical Domain Working Group.

The work is being coordinated by a joint effort between Bill Roberts (of Swirrl, a member of SDWIG) and me (Franck Cotton, INSEE, co-chair of the SSCG).  We would love to have contributions from anyone with experience of sharing statistical data via the web.

Our plan is to produce a document to be published jointly by the W3C and OGC, in the style of the Data on the Web Best Practices https://www.w3.org/TR/dwbp/  It will cover how some of the DWBPs should be interpreted and applied for the case of statistical data, as well as adding sections on issues specific to statistical data.  The emphasis will be on government-style statistics (as opposed to, say, scientific measurements) though many aspects of the work may be quite generally applicable.

The aim is to have a first version of it, by the end of this year.  The work will be coordinated online, supplemented by occasional conference calls.  Once we have some expressions of interest, we will set up a first call for introductions and activity planning.

We plan to take into account previous work in the area, including the work of national statistical institutes and international organisations or joint bodies such as the UN, Eurostat, World Bank and the features and example implementations of standards such as SCOVO, RDF Data Cube, SDMX, SKOS, XKOS.

We will be looking for examples of good practice and success stories, problems encountered, analysis of issues or challenges, suggestions for areas that need research or discussion, and established or candidate solutions to particular challenges.

If you would like to get involved, please reply via this mailing list, or direct to bill@swirrl.com<mailto:bill@swirrl.com> or franck.cotton@insee.fr<mailto:franck.cotton@insee.fr>

Best regards

Franck Cotton