1 1 Building the public image of statistics - The importance of user oriented dissemination Øystein Olsen Director General, Statistics Norway International seminar on dissemination Chisinau, Moldova, May 27 th 2010

2 Statistics Norway in a nutshell: Independence anchored in The Statistics Act (1989) 1000 employees –Responsible for 85 percent of all official statistics in Norway A Research Department within the institution –Serving ministries with macroeconomic and micro simulation models Statistics based on administrative registers and surveys About 300 statistics produced and 1000 (news) releases on annually International cooperation –The EU/EFTA statistical system –International consulting

3 Statistics Norway – an institution that counts Statistics Norway in three words: Independent Reliable Beyond borders

4 From our Strategy… Satisfied users and motivated respondents –Official statistics are a common good –Analyses provide insight and coherence Cooperation to improve statistics –International cooperation to promote comparability in the statistics –Assistance to countries that need to develop a statistical system

5 Quality of Statistics Statistics shall be relevant accurate timely and punctual comparable and coherent easily accessible and well documented

6 User orientation in practice… Publish on web –to all users –at the same time –for free Publish metadata for all statistics –About the Statistics –Contact persons (not by position, but by knowledge) Give media special attention –They are very important distributors –Treat all media equal

7 User orientation (cont) Publish full content in all languages –Norwegian –English Make the information understandable for everybody –Simple language –Analysis and short stories –Graphs, maps and visualisations Correct errors instantly –and be very open on what was wrong

8 Add some extras… Publish exciters to attract new user groups –Name statistics –Historical statistics –School pages Hold free courses for special user groups –Media –Librarians –Students –Public sector Create a few special products as give-aways –This is Norway

9 Or we could just… Create a completely new web site… ?

10 Ambitions – New ssb.no New publishing systems –Develop new user-friendly and efficient publishing systems where statisticians to a greater extent can arrange their own content. New services for wide dissemination –Developing new services and functionality for the so-called distributed information objects, ie to make available content elements (figures, tables, graphs, and more) outside ssb.no. New graphical user interface –Establish new design and new graphical user interface for ssb.no, including the revised structure and new types of page content

11 New ssb.no for prosumers - what is a distributed information object? Ctrl C Ctrl V Newspaper.no CMS … more about this in the next presentation

12 Thank you for your attention! Questions ?