Country update : France IMAODBC The Hague - September 2005

Achievements / 1 : France in facts and figures: a thematic statistical encyclopedia 13 themes, each theme proposing three types of information key data broken down into 50 sub-themes and 500 pages dedicated to precise topics on each page : essential data and, for further information, links to analyses and definitions the pages are updated source by source detailed data downloadable files of detailed data and links to on line databases studies and analyses all the articles published by Insee related to the theme

Achievements / 2 : going further to on line dissemination … and free information printed publications the last series of publications which were only available on paper are now also on www.insee.fr five series among ten are disseminated only on line from this year on shifting from CD-ROM to internet surveys microdata are now downloadable from the institute’s site, when anonymization is technically feasible statistical classifications can be consulted on, or downloaded from the site as a consequence two series of CD-ROMs among three have been suppressed

Achievements / 3 : completing information on methodology an important part of the site has been dedicated to methodology this year two sub-headings have been completed : a dictionnary of statistical terms standard statistical classifications a new sub-heading has been dedicated to the methodology of the sources managed by Insee for each source are available a description and a summing up of its methodology a set of more detailed and more or less specialised notes on the subject only a few sources are described for the moment

In progress : shifting completely to on line – and free - dissemination : at the beginning of 2006 a new sub-site will give access to a local areas statistics database (cf session papers) the last CD-ROMs will be replaced by the possibility of downloading the same files from www.insee.fr towards a new user interface users judge Insee’s site pretty rich, but underline the complexity of navigation and weakness of searching tools for this reason a project of complete reengineering of the user interface has been launched the disclosure of this new site is planned for 2007