Mike SivyerVICTORIA, DECEMBER, 2002

UPDATE UPDATE ONON

DATA DATA LIBERATION LIBERATION

STAFF UPDATE SINCE DECEMBER 2001

Sage Cram began as the Communication-Liaison Officer in DLI Section in Feb. 2002

She is a position that had been vacant for 5 months… …after being filled for 5 months… ...after being vacant for 8 months! First duty - attend Atlantic DLI Workshop

OTHER STAFF CHANGES

Anne Chartrand started working with DLI Section on part time basis She undertook responsibility to publish new edition of

newsletter

Roger Arsenault (SPSS writer) left at end of Sept. 2002 when contract ended

ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE

All 66 members have now signed and returned new Licence Agreement

Everyone signed up on a permanent basis - no need to sign another agreement in foreseeable future

OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE

We have instituted new invoicing procedures

All invoices will be sent out during first quarter of Stats Can’s fiscal year i.e. April - May

This will help DLI Section better manager budget

All members currently paid up until end of March 2003

Next invoice will be sent out spring 2003 to cover up to end of March 2004

If/when subscriptions fees go up Chief Statistician has agreed to maintain STC proportion of overall budget (28% - 30%)

DLI COLLECTION UPDATE

Continue to add new and revised files to DLI Collection

Currently have over 16,000 files - these include data and metadata files

Large number of Census and Geography files being added

Have increased FTP Storage space from 17 gigs to 70 gigs to accommodate continued growth

We have had discussions with Workplace and Employees Survey and should be getting a public use file of employee part.

Have also had discussion with Health Canada and Queens University about obtaining file from their joint survey (Health behaviors of school-aged children)

Also under discussion are obtaining files from Millennium Scholarship Fund

OTHER NEWS

Have re-started publication of the newsletter:

Have produced two issues of DLI Update since last spring - just released new issue containing two major articles

Looking for articles for next issue to be published by spring - submit articles to Anne Chartrand

Census began releasing data last spring with DLI members having access to additional details on Census/STC web - Level 2

Some problems first day of release but soon corrected

CA*NET3 helped with heavy traffic issue and now Census site and Level 2 access seems to be running smoothly

Have not released new version of DLI web site due to a number of problems:

Marie Josée only doing this part time - creation of new pages take priority

Almost completed English version when requested to make changes to comply with new departmental guidelines

New Initiative With McGraw-Hill Ryerson

Ontario Education Liaison Officer (Sunita Kossta) arranged initiative with textbook publisher

They will include blurb about DLI and DLI logo in university textbooks

Will also include a link to DLI web site from their textbook site

NEW ON-LINE DOCUMENT

Learning Resources has a new document that should help with Data Literacy

Called: Statistics: Power from Data

Contains a lot of information on survey and statistical concepts and definitions

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2003

Hope to have final version of new DLI web site within next few months

Staff of Section should remain stable for next while

PERSONNELL CHANGES TO COME

Christiane to retire at end of Oct. 2003

Ernie to leave Library in July 2003

Anne to become full time with DLI - will take over duties of Christiane and Roger

Other unforeseen changes could occur that might have a major impact

OTHER CHANGES IN 2003

Three EAC academic member seats are up for renewal in fall Currently seats filled by:

Chuck Humphrey (U. of Alberta) Barbara Znamarowski ( Trent) Mary MacLeod (Acadia)

If required identification and selection of replacement members to be done by EAC Chair(s) and the Director responsible for the DLI

DLI TRAINING IN 2003

DLI Training and CAPDU to be held in conjunction with IASSIST in 2003

To be held at University of Ottawa: May 25 - May 30 May 25 = CAPDU Annual Meeting (suggested) May 26 = concurrent DLI-CAPDU workshops May 27 = IASSIST workshops May 28 - May 30 = IASSIST Conference

Regional Workshops budget (2003-04) to be used to provide travel assistance to DLI Contacts

Check out conference web site at: http://iassist2003.ssc.uwo.ca/

Susan Mowers and Wendy Watkins coordinating local arrangements

MAJOR ISSUE RE: FUTURE OF PUBLIC FILES

We have met and will continue to meet with producing divisions to encourage them to continue to produce public use files

This is becoming more and more difficult for divisions to do for a number of reasons - Ray will elaborate further

We will be asking DLI Contacts to start to provide some kind of feedback

Need to know such information as : Who is using file? Researchers? Students? Numbers? For what purpose? Research? Teaching? Which files are being used? Are there any problems with files and/or documentation What can be improved and how?

Very important that this information be collected and fed back to authoring divisions

Along with other information can be used to help justify continued creation of PUMFs

Chuck & Elizabeth study on NPHS - as described in latest DLI Update

This was very well received by Health Division

Inspired Director to ask Chief Statistician about difficulty getting public files approved

This partly due to new stringent conditions placed by Microdata Release Committee related to issue of confidentiality and ability to identify individual respondent

He agreed to look into this - although encouraging not a guarantee that situation will soon change