DLI UPDATE 2004 – 2005 Mike Sivyer Statistics Canada April 11, 2005

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES A big change for the DLI Community was Ernie’s retirement last June. As of July the Communications Division and the Library and Information Centre have been joined to form Communications and Library Services Division (CLSD) Vicki Crompton is the Director and Bernie Gloyn is the Assistant Director responsible for the Library.

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES The DLI Section remains a part of the Library Services area. Recently named Assistant Chief Statistician for our Field is Wayne Smith. Additional organizational changes to occur this July.

DLI MEMBERSHIP A DLI member from Quebec left the program in 2004 bring our membership down to 65. However since then we have grown to 67. École Polytechnique de Montréal joined early in the year. Last fall the latest to join was Fanshawe College in London Ontario.

DLI MEMBERSHIP Fanshawe is the first community college in Ontario to join. Have had enquires from four other colleges and have sent them some basic information. So far nothing definite from them.

DLI COLLECTION A recent addition is the December 2003 version of Canadian Business Patterns as well as the June 2004 version. Thanks to efforts of Vicki and Bernie we will now receive the CBP when released instead on one year later. The version released last week is being delivered as we speak. Also have received the one-time-only product CBP – Revenue Ranges.

DLI COLLECTION In December, in response to a request from a DLI Member we acquired and added the “Journey to Work” tables from the 1996 Census. Another new addition are the “Detailed Expenditure Tables” from the Spending Habits Survey (SHS). We have just received revisions to the NLSCY files including the synthetic file for Cycle 5.

DLI COLLECTION Also just received from Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics is a new set of their data products. This can now be found in the ”Justice” directory on the FTP site. We have the Census Individual PUMF and are waiting for the others to be released. The Family File is expected for June No date has been given for the Household file.

DLI COLLECTION It is expected that the STC mainframe will be taken down within the next 4 – 5 years. We have an agreement with Special Surveys Division to assign one of their staff to locate and retrieve some of the older files. During the process we have determined that we have all of the files from the old Smoking Habits Surveys that have been approved for release.

DLI COLLECTION We have been able to obtain the complete set of files form the Job Opportunities Survey. Also will soon have the entire series of Absence From Work Survey. Next will try and retrieve the series related to the Annual Work Patterns Survey.

DLI SECTION ACTIVITIES Besides participating at a number of DLI training events members of the DLI have also attend other workshops and conferences. At the end of May members of the DLI Section attended the annual IASSIST Conference and Workshops in Madison Wisconsin.

DLI SECTION ACTIVITIES Immediately after IASSIST we attended CAPDU sessions in Winnipeg including the annual general meeting. Although he had not officially started his new duties in the Library Bernie attended CAPDU to meet people and get and understanding of the issues and concerns of the data community.

DLI SECTION ACTIVITIES We collaborated with the RDCs to produce a joint “flyer” promoting both programs. Members of the DLI Section have also been engaged in a number of “outreach activities”: André went to Université Laval; Gaetan went to École Polytechnique de Montréal; Mike and Sage attended an RDC training workshop held at Carleton to explain DLI; Mike and Sage went to Fanshawe College.

EXTERNAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE The EAC met at the end of Sept for three very full days of meetings. Topics covered included: Governance; Data use questions; Training/education; Bibliographic Citation guide; A DDI strategy for DLI; Other

EXTERNAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE After Gaetan’s retirement his place was taken by Richard Boily from Université du Québec à Rimouski. Recently Maryna Beaulieu from Université de Montréal has been named as 2 nd representative from Quebec.

EXTERNAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Changes made to the governance document last fall included: Identification and selection of academic members shall be made by EAC Executive Committee; Academic members shall be invited to serve a four year term.

EXTERNAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Invite Manager of DSP to sit as non-voting member. Identify a 3 rd STC member preferably from the business side Create a separate document outlining the structure/mandate of the Education Committee.

DLI TRAINING PROGRAM Due to the number of changes with the DLI Contacts recently two “Orientation Workshops” were held last year. One in Kingston and one in Montreal. Representatives from across Canada attended these workshops.

DLI TRAINING PROGRAM The Education Committee met on Ottawa in the beginning of October. Topics covered included: Reports from the Regions; Review of DLI Curriculum; Delivery Methods for Instruction; National Training; Pilot Project for repository of all DLI training materials using T-Space (Jane to discuss later).

DLI TRAINING PROGRAM The structure of the Education committee has been finalized. Committee includes: All 8 Regional Training Co-ordinators; One member from EAC who acts as Chair; Members of STC DLI Section. Committee reports to the EAC and will meet at least once a year. All training related documents (structure, funding policy, training principals) will be placed on the DLI web site.

DLI TRAINING PROGRAM The Training Program Structure consists of: Regional Training Coordinators (2 per Region) who are responsible for organizing the annual training workshops. Primary Trainers: provide substantive instruction in the program. Have gone to the Train The Trainers session last March. May be invited to other regions depending on expertise required.

DLI TRAINING PROGRAM Training Instructors: a person asked to make a presentation on a specific topic (e.g.. An update on E-STAT).

DATA USE QUESTIONS DLI Contacts are encouraged to ask licencing and data use questions on the DLILIST. However NO action should be taken until an “official response” has been provided by the DLI Section. Do not act on comments from other DLI Contacts.

DATA USE QUESTIONS All questions are reviewed by the EAC Executive and then an official answer is provided. All aspects of the situation must be looked at not just if user has right to access but just as important the intended use of the data. When dealing with researchers working with a non-academic agency the situation becomes very complex.

DATA USE QUESTIONS In these cases we must apply the rule of “follow the money”. Funds and grants can not go to non-academic agency and then to researcher. All money for research must go through the institutions research/grants department.

DATA USE QUESTIONS Someone with access to the master files in the RDCs does not automatically have access to the public use files from the DLI. Non-DLI researchers can be granted access to master files in RDCs. Public files can be used to learn about the data but must not be included in any non- academic research.

CITATION GUIDE In response to many questions on the DLILIST related to citing STC and DLI products Gaetan was asked by the EAC to develop a Bibliographic Citation Guide. He researched different citation guides and even included some ISO standards. This document is unique in the world.

CITATION GUIDE This guide has been presented to : the EAC; several STC subject matter divisions including representatives from Advisory Services; and academics at Carleton University. It will be presented at CAPDU later this week and at IASSIST in May. It has been well received and welcomed by all.

DLI – DDI AND NESSTAR The DLI has decided to make its collection DDI compliant. To do this we have acquired the NESSTAR tool. This tool/system allows us to not only tag the metadata but to also include the data. NESSTAR can read in an SPSS file which save a lot of “tagging” work.

DLI – DDI AND NESSTAR One important aspect of using the NESSTAR tool is that it allows for variable searching across different surveys. We intend to place the NESSTAR Browser on the DLI website so all DLI members can use it – just as soon as we obtain permission from our informatics people. Marie-Josée will demonstrate what we are doing in this project.