Second year of User Support Dissemination Working Group meeting 23-24/11/2006 Norbert REINERT & Henric ANSELM

Introduction First level: Online Help Second level: National ESDS Team Third level: ESDS Team Conclusion and improvement objectives

First level: Web site Online Help Access to Help Pages: First visit Links FAQ’s: Frequently Asked Questions Metadata: SDDS (Special Data Dissemination Standard)

Second level: National ESDS Team ESDS and the grant scheme Until September 2006: 20 countries, Portugal and Switzerland under Gentlemens agreement Since October 2006: 22 Countries, Switzerland still with Gentlemens agreement

General findings Total number of requests during the second year was 23 866. An increase of 9% compared to 21 917 requests for the first year. Please bear in mind that the contractual years, with the National Statistical Institute (NSI), are running from 1 October until 30 September of following years.

Country Q4: 2004 Q1: 2005 Q2: 2005 Q3: 2005 Total Q4: 2005 Q1: 2006 Q2: 2006 Q3: 2006 Czech Republic 142 182 176 109 609 153 227 195 125 700 Denmark 237 226 232 165 860 181 220 190 135 726 Germany 2345 2287 2655 2488 9775 2051 2485 2203 2188 8927 Estonia 40 38 51 62 191 46 57 52 193 Greece 55 99 110 71 335 93 112 90 80 375 Spain 328 261 275 145 1009 152 290 249 175 866 France 206 216 217 178 817 268 269 168 858 Hungary n/a 107 189 151 67 514 Italy 530 668 566 455 2219 512 525 332 316 1685 Cyprus n/a. 17 16 5 15 13 60 Latvia 96 77 253 143 121 63 502 Lithuania 44 22 167 66 76 68 18 228 Malta 19 29 35 28 160 Netherlands 231 130 101 637 180 283 221 851 Poland 104 185 91 600 Portugal 34 50 199 20 78 54 192 Slovenia 41 42 166 25 43 36 126 Finland 105 74 371 87 407 Sweden 320 1064 202 229 811 UK 696 656 560 564 2476 742 995 920 942 3599 Norway 65 70 61 256 33 59 49 Switzerland 117 85 404 354 Eurostat directly 767* 711* 272 326 2076 197 257 494 446 1394 5511 5722 5729 4955 21917 5183 6773 6341 5569 23866 * = higher figure due to technical problems known during the two first quarters after the free dissemination policy was implemented.

Type of requests (1/2) Requests related to the availability of data and publications increased from 62% in the first year to about 70% during the second year. Methodological requests are still about 10%. Technical requests and demands for the verification of data decreased slightly. This change can be explained by more familiarity of many users with the Eurostat Internet Site and also better documentation of statistical data and a more stable IT environment.

The user groups which use the Eurostat Internet Site for a longer period, such as the users from NSIs and international organisations required less support. Compared to the first year, requests from: NSIs decreased from 13% to 2.5% EU institutions/Agencies decreased from 7% to 0.4% International Organisations decreased from 4% to less than 1% Type of requests (2/2)

Request treatment About 54% of the requests were dealt with by e-mail, either sent directly to the NSIs (36%) or sent via the Eurostat portal (18%). The requests which were answered by phone, increased to 42% during the third quarter. Please note that a phone service is offered by the majority of the NSIs mainly in line with the support given on national statistics.

Types of users Requests from the Commercial company/enterprise sector increased from 25%, in the first year, to 40% in the second year. Student or Academic sector is stable with about 30%. The two sectors together represent 70% of the requests during second year - compared to about 55% in the first year As in the first year, 93% of all requests are addressed in English

Third level : Eurostat ESDS Team (1/3) Central Support National Statistical Institutes Support

Third level : Eurostat ESDS Team (2/3) Although most requests are answered within the stipulated deadline (24 hours for standard requests and 5 working days for complex), Eurostat tries to speed-up the internal response time. One concrete action is the implementation of internally centralized functional email boxes (at present 27 are implemented).

Third level : Eurostat ESDS Team (3/3) A vast majority (63%) of the support requests required the specific competence of the Eurostat production units. This shows a clear trend that the users have less general problems but have more and more in-depth questions. Involvement of the different Eurostat units in treating the 1 660 complex user requests (including three requests forwarded to other DGs) is shown in the following table.

Total Origin Treatment by End users NSIs B6 team NSI Units Q4: 2005 791 577 214 197 228 366 Q1: 2006 979 677 302 257 465 Q2: 2006 726 494 232 140 205 381 Q3: 2006 709 446 263 153 108 448 3 205 2 497 1 011 747 798 1 660

Feedback from users (all suggestions are carefully analyzed) User suggestions, for improval, received from both NSIs and end users (all suggestions are carefully analyzed) Increased number of positive comments and feedback

Website of NSIs Pertinent information Clear information on free access Some NSIs have very clear information on free of charge and chargeable activities Good selection of links to Eurostat website or other useful sites

Outlook for the future Continuation of the grant scheme? Eurostat strives to have an even more harmonized level of quality Trainings Experiences concerning the grants claim

Thank you for your attentation! Dissemination Working Group meeting 23-24/11/2006 Norbert REINERT & Henric ANSELM