13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group1 Report of the SDMX Technical Standards Working Group SDMX Expert Group Meeting, Paris, September 2012

2 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Background & composition (I) –Provides the forum for the active participation of the SDMX community in the management and development of the SDMX technical standards –Started in May 2011, with the SDMX Global Conference in Washington –20 members: Central banks, statistical offices & international organisations 14 countries and 6 international organisations 4 continents Representative of the SDMX community

3 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Background & composition (II) –Reports to the SDMX Secretariat –Participants expected to provide around one person month per year for work in the TWG –Membership of a non-sponsoring organisation should normally not exceed two years –Chair and co-chair, with one of these coming from a sponsoring organisation, elected for one year (re- election possible)

4 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Tasks –Focuses on improving and extending the SDMX Technical Standards –Owns the public SDMX technical standards issues list –Reviews the technical standards issues list and decides on priorities for working on reported issues –Works with the appropriate external SDMX consultants to prepare a proposal for a revised version of the standard to be approved by the SDMX sponsors –Oversees a set of SDMX reference tools –Cooperates with the SDMX Statistical Working group as required

5 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work methods –Meetings: 05/2011 (Washington), 10/2011 (Frankfurt), 06/2012 (Rome), 12/2012 (Paris) –Teleconferences –Web-based platform (eBIS) – s

6 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme –List of issues collected from the community (including leftovers from the SDMX 2.1 revision process) –TWG voted for the issues with the highest priorities in May 2011 –Part of the SDMX action plan SDMX action plan

7 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: Global registry (I) –Wish to have a central location where statistical metadata are made available to the community: SDMX concepts, codelists and top-level agencies Internationally agreed DSDs (e.g.: BPM6) Other metadata maintained by members of the SDMX community => Need to deploy an SDMX Global registry available for use by the SDMX community

8 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: Global registry (III) –Delivered so far: User requirements for the SDMX Global Registry Proposed hosting solutions for the SDMX Global Registry (cloud hosting) Operational aspects of the SDMX Global Registry Recommended registry implementation (Fusion Registry, from Metadata Technology Ltd., UK) –Funding issues currently discussed at the level of the Secretariat and the Sponsors –Deadline: 30/09/2013

9 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: SDMX IT tools strategy –SDMX tools individually developed over the years and made available (mostly for free) to the SDMX community. –But most of them are not interoperable. –Proposed to address the issue by Adopting normative interfaces Providing tools to check the compatibility of tools against these interfaces Offering reference implementations –In addition, a new document, targeting IT architects and developers will be delivered –Deadline: 30/10/2013

10 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: Security guidelines for registry and web services –Security-related questions left out of version 2.1 of the SDMX web services guidelines and of the SDMX registry guidelines. –Need to cover issues such as authentication, authorisation, confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation and accessibility –Covers the needs of the SDMX Global Registry –Updated Section 07 will be made available for review on the SDMX users forum –Deadlines: Global registry: 31/05/2012 Web services: 31/12/2012

11 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: Improved technical documentation –Often pointed out that the SDMX technical documentation is complex. –Need to suggest possible improvements and enhancements. –Focused on SDMX 2.1 –Deliverables: Updated user guide XML Schema Documentation Schema/Model mapping –Deadline: 30/06/2013

SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: SDMX and other technical standards Contribute in the discussion of the possible interaction of SDMX and other standard (such as DDI) in the matters of dealing with micro-data and supporting the phases of the GSBPM –Assess current capabilities (SDMX vs. other standards) –Suggest how SDMX could evolve –Discuss the possible integration with other standards Deadline:

SDMX Technical Working Group Work programme: SDMX and other technical standards Progress so far: Use-cases collected for: –Microdata (questionnaires, registers, multidimens.) –Process phases (exchange, validation, calculation, etc.) Analysis in progress on SDMX and DDI –Applying the standards to the use cases –Evidence of cases of incomplete support for future suggestion of possible improvements New fields of interaction and comparison: –GSIM (UNECE) –RDF language / Data Cube Vocabulary (W3C) –XBRL standard

SDMX Technical Working Group In addition: SDMX-JSON –Many web services nowadays return data in formats other than XML. Common example: JSON –Members of the TWG teamed up with other members of the SDMX community to propose a JSON representation of the information model –Aim to increase utilisation, ease data extraction and reduce developers burden Improved accessibility –Requirements: Based on the SDMX information model and RESTful API. Optimised for the web and mobile devices Simple, terse & solid JSON

15 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group In addition: Reviews & Change management procedures –Provided reviews of various documents such as: Note to the SDMX Secretariat on BPM6 DSD issues (BOP-DSD Working Group) Guidelines for the creation and management of SDMX cross-domain code lists (SWG) The Data Cube Vocabulary: Deploying SDMX as RDF from Existing Systems –Currently working on adopting change management procedures for swiftly handling bug reports and minor improvements

16 13 September 2012 SDMX Technical Working Group Thank you!