Mike Sivyer VICTORIA, DECEMBER, 2002 UPDATE ON DATA LIBERATION

STAFF UPDATE SINCE DECEMBER 2001 l Sage Cram began as the Communication- Liaison Officer in DLI Section in Feb l She is a position that had been vacant for 5 months… l …after being filled for 5 months… l...after being vacant for 8 months! l First duty - attend Atlantic DLI Workshop

OTHER STAFF CHANGES l Anne Chartrand started working with DLI Section on part time basis l She undertook responsibility to publish new edition of newsletter l Roger Arsenault (SPSS writer) left at end of Sept when contract ended

ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE l All 66 members have now signed and returned new Licence Agreement l Everyone signed up on a permanent basis - no need to sign another agreement in foreseeable future

OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE l We have instituted new invoicing procedures l All invoices will be sent out during first quarter of Stats Can’s fiscal year i.e. April - May l This will help DLI Section better manager budget

l All members currently paid up until end of March 2003 l Next invoice will be sent out spring 2003 to cover up to end of March 2004 l If/when subscriptions fees go up Chief Statistician has agreed to maintain STC proportion of overall budget (28% - 30%)

DLI COLLECTION UPDATE l Continue to add new and revised files to DLI Collection l Currently have over 16,000 files - these include data and metadata files l Large number of Census and Geography files being added l Have increased FTP Storage space from 17 gigs to 70 gigs to accommodate continued growth

l We have had discussions with Workplace and Employees Survey and should be getting a public use file of employee part. l Have also had discussion with Health Canada and Queens University about obtaining file from their joint survey (Health behaviors of school-aged children) l Also under discussion are obtaining files from Millennium Scholarship Fund

OTHER NEWS l Have re-started publication of the newsletter: l Have produced two issues of DLI Update since last spring - just released new issue containing two major articles l Looking for articles for next issue to be published by spring - submit articles to Anne Chartrand

l Census began releasing data last spring with DLI members having access to additional details on Census/STC web - Level 2 l Some problems first day of release but soon corrected l CA*NET3 helped with heavy traffic issue and now Census site and Level 2 access seems to be running smoothly

l Have not released new version of DLI web site due to a number of problems: l Marie Josée only doing this part time - creation of new pages take priority l Almost completed English version when requested to make changes to comply with new departmental guidelines

New Initiative With McGraw-Hill Ryerson l Ontario Education Liaison Officer (Sunita Kossta) arranged initiative with textbook publisher l They will include blurb about DLI and DLI logo in university textbooks l Will also include a link to DLI web site from their textbook site

NEW ON-LINE DOCUMENT l Learning Resources has a new document that should help with Data Literacy l Called: Statistics: Power from Data l Contains a lot of information on survey and statistical concepts and definitions

THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2003 l Hope to have final version of new DLI web site within next few months l Staff of Section should remain stable for next while

PERSONNELL CHANGES TO COME l Christiane to retire at end of Oct l Ernie to leave Library in July 2003 l Anne to become full time with DLI - will take over duties of Christiane and Roger l Other unforeseen changes could occur that might have a major impact

OTHER CHANGES IN 2003 l Three EAC academic member seats are up for renewal in fall l Currently seats filled by: l Chuck Humphrey (U. of Alberta) l Barbara Znamarowski ( Trent) l 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 l DLI Training and CAPDU to be held in conjunction with IASSIST in 2003 l To be held at University of Ottawa: May 25 - May 30 l May 25 = CAPDU Annual Meeting (suggested) l May 26 = concurrent DLI-CAPDU workshops l May 27 = IASSIST workshops l May 28 - May 30 = IASSIST Conference

l Regional Workshops budget ( ) to be used to provide travel assistance to DLI Contacts l Check out conference web site at: l Susan Mowers and Wendy Watkins coordinating local arrangements

MAJOR ISSUE RE: FUTURE OF PUBLIC FILES l We have met and will continue to meet with producing divisions to encourage them to continue to produce public use files l This is becoming more and more difficult for divisions to do for a number of reasons - Ray will elaborate further

l We will be asking DLI Contacts to start to provide some kind of feedback l Need to know such information as : l Who is using file? Researchers? Students? l Numbers? l For what purpose? Research? Teaching? l Which files are being used? l Are there any problems with files and/or documentation l What can be improved and how?

l Very important that this information be collected and fed back to authoring divisions l Along with other information can be used to help justify continued creation of PUMFs l Chuck & Elizabeth study on NPHS - as described in latest DLI Update l This was very well received by Health Division

l Inspired Director to ask Chief Statistician about difficulty getting public files approved l This partly due to new stringent conditions placed by Microdata Release Committee related to issue of confidentiality and ability to identify individual respondent l He agreed to look into this - although encouraging not a guarantee that situation will soon change