Microdata dissemination best
practice
Draft note prepared by the World Bank
Development Data Group for the CCSA
twenty-second session, Ankara,
September 2013
Olivier Dupriez (odupriez@worldbank.org)
The demand for microdata
• Growing and diversifying; justifies investments
in microdata dissemination by international or
regional organizations
• But evidence is still anecdotal
– Example: World Bank Microdata Library
• 400,000+ hits in past 6 months; 4,000 registered users
• Catalog of citations shows diversity of outputs
• A more detailed assessment would be useful to
better quantify and qualify the demand/use
The supply
• Few CCSA member agencies disseminate
microdata: EUROSTAT, UNICEF, WB, WHO
– Based on review of CCSA members’ websites
– These agencies:
• Provide data free of charge
• Impose some restrictions (no “open data”)
• Comply with (some) best practices
UN Fundamental Principles
• Microdata dissemination for research purpose
is not incompatible with the UN Fundamental
Principles of Statistics as long as it is not
possible to identify data referring to an
individual
– See UNECE Principles and Guidelines
of Good Practice
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe,
Conference of European Statisticians, 2007, Managing
Statistical Confidentiality and Microdata Access
http://www.unece.org/stats/documents/tfcm/1.e.pdf
Best practice - Organizational
• Key principles: openness (i.e. provided on
equal terms at low/no cost), transparency
(detailed metadata and clear access
procedures and terms of use), legal conformity,
privacy and copyright protection,
quality of data,
security, and
accountability.
– See IHSN and OECD
guidelines
Best practice - Technical
• Originate mainly from academic data archives
• Adapted by the IHSN
• Adopted by many (including FAO, ILO, UIS, UNICEF,
WB, WFP, WHO)
• Free software and guidelines available for:
–
–
–
–
–
Documentation (based on DDI metadata standard)
Cataloguing
Preservation of digital information
Statistical disclosure risk management
Dissemination
Best practice - Technical
• Areas where more needs to be done to
improve the best practice:
– Practice manual for statistical disclosure risk
control (ongoing work by PARIS21 and World Bank
for the IHSN)
– Development and use of a common taxonomy of
topics as a data discovery tool (ongoing by IHSN)
Implementation
• Significant cost of curating data and providing
a service of microdata dissemination
– Requires sustainable staffing and budgeting
• Not all agencies can/should do it
– Rely on trusted repositories (other international
organization, or academic data centers)
CCSA Task Team
• Limited role in best practice development:
already exist or other/better mechanisms are
in place to develop the missing components
(IHSN open to all CCSA member agencies).
• Possible CCSA role in:
– Assessment of demand for data (report)
– Adoption of the DDI metadata standard as a
preferred UN standard (UNSC)
– Advocacy for improved curation and dissemination
of microdata