1. 5 November, 2018 Nuku’alofa, Tonga
Improving Data Dissemination and Use in Pacific Island Countries: Data liberation
5 November, 2018
Nuku’alofa, Tonga

2. to make government data as accessible and useful
Open data
Increase transparency and add value to citizens
Reduce inefficiencies and barriers to information
Enable data-driven applications that improve public service delivery
Provide public data that can stimulate the economy
NSOs are well places to lead and contribute to open data initiatives
Expand the use and re-use of data
Underlying principle:
to make government data as accessible and useful
as possible

3. Open data challenges
Balancing confidentiality with data use – if we lock it in a safe, it’s not helping anyone
Changing mindsets
Building robust and transparent open data systems
Lower risk approach is to not open data
But we risk our relevance as statistical providers
Metadata documentation is an onerous task
Getting comfortable with the process
WB, UNICEF, DHS-programme “force” open data
We need to have systems in place

4. Open data opportunities
Make data that are already published easily accessible
Aggregates, tables
Reports, instruments, classifications, manuals, etc.
Metadata
Lead and govern the statistical system to facilitate low-risk data liberation
Data curation, standards and metadata documentation
Increase discovery, accessibility and use of data
Spread the cost and increase return on investment (and future investment)
Reduce demand on NSO for customised tables
Raise the profile (and capacity) for evidenced based policy formation
Market yourself as data guru – who else has nationally representative data?
Be transparent about data limitations and receive feedback
Identify, target and screen your users
Any formal process is safer than the current process (Public User File; legal and governance)

5. Discussion: data liberation – opportunities and challenges

6. TT: How risky do we go for disclosure?
What’s an acceptable threshold?
GA: Survey Solutions server to be hosted at SPC
EW: justify millions spent on collecting data; some of the biggest users are the users, which is valuable as education in important; a lot of information that’s collected is not analysed; e.g., Wadan doing further analysis (vegetarians v carnivores); challenge with MOU and the census (minor clause wording issues);
TT: the processes are still a little unclear – still trying to understand how we do this, the whole process and why we do it. Propose that we bring together focal points – sub- regional, and by island groups (smaller together) – to work in Noumea on DDI and anonymization. Sooner the better. Data backup for government servers is done every night, but perhaps there should be one offshore.
AC: Standardise, especially data processing, version control (e.g., version 1 = microdata; version 2 = macrodata); preservation is storage of all survey instruments from beginning to end; window of opportunity for backup (e.g., human error, disaster); whole project view (e.g., from project concept, budgeting to very end); software support as government is only allowing certain software; support this idea to have a focal point; have already assigned a few staff with discretion for data release; interested in building capacity of NSO; can build documentation into a census assistant’s role;
IG: support S-S to be hosted at SPC; need idea around where the dataset is held by other agencies (e.g., MICS) and to establish a formal process with those agencies, similarly to SDD; opportunity to safeguard data (losing data, software out of data, losing physical data); happy to take the opportunity to preserve datasets at SDD; challenge will be convincing other line agencies to get on board with the project; need to review statistics acts; on board with preservation and documentation, but need more exposure on the anonymization processes;
RS: we just need to convince our leaders on anonymization processes and to demonstrate that systems are in place; very important that respondents are protected.
JA: security of datasets; want some exposure on how we backup at SPC; looking forward to legal framework;
GA: need to get approval from superiors; project is no-cost to CSD; initiative is beneficial to make use of data; important initiative to avoid multiple uses of data:
Aritita: happy with the proposal; interested in offshore curation; thinking about preservations; understands that there’s pressure from WB et al to publically release, so there’s a need for anonymization
IG: can we consider linking this work and building it in to project design/preparation/implementation
AC: can this suggestion be added to the methods board