First Commercial Web-Service SDMX
Space-Time Research has announced support of the SDMX Technical Standards Version 2.0 for Release 7.0 of the popular SuperSTAR tabulation and dissemination software. SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange) is a global initiative to facilitate the automated exchange and processing of data and metadata between organizations.
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SDMX Initiative
The initiative is a cooperative effort between several international organizations: the Bank for International Settlement (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat, the World Bank (WB), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD). Eurostat is using SDMX to standardize data reporting across the European Statistical System, enabling the European Union to easily compare statistics between countries and regions. As part of this initiative, Eurostat has requested that all European Union participants provide 2011 census data in SDMX format.
Dr. Peter Hackl of the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, and former Director General of Statistics Austria, commented
“the adoption of data exchange standards within the European community and globally has obvious potentials for improved data quality and efficiency of statistical services. Standardization of data from various national data providers and an extensive offer of corresponding metadata will help organizations such as Eurostat and OECD to make better use of data and allow users better understanding of and deepened confidence in statistical results and analyses.”
Rudi Bauer, Managing Director of Paradigma Management Consulting in Vienna which is involved with statistics offices in Europe said
“we are pleased to see the Space-Time Research commitment to SDMX to further validate its value and acceptance.”
Statistics Providers
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will be the first user of the SDMX functionality in SuperSTAR. Geoff Lee, First Assistant Statistician at the ABS, said,
“We are a member of a global statistical community and our users need to share secure, globally-compatible data. As such, we recognized the importance and the value that supporting the SDMX standard provides."
“Our commitment is to provide solutions that support the needs of official statistics providers. The addition of SDMX functionality to SuperSTAR will enable our customer to adopt the SDMX standards quickly and easily,”
said Don McDougall, CEO of Space-Time Research.
“We are excited to be taking the lead in providing commercial support and encouragement for the use of standards for the exchange of data between and within statistical organizations and are pleased to be working in collaboration with such a leading statistical organization as the Australian Bureau of Statistics."
Innovation
SuperSTAR will be the first commercially available tool to allow user-defined tables generated from microdata or aggregated data to be shared using the SDMX format. The SuperSTAR SDMX web services implementation will enable census organizations, national statistical offices (NSO’s) and other statistics providers to programmatically exchange, share and mash-up data in the open SDMX format by enabling creation of data files, via SDMX based web services.
Delivery
A version of SuperSTAR providing large table tabulation and Save-to-SDMX capability from SuperWEB2 is available today. SuperSTAR Release 7.0 including SDMX web services, DDI 3.1 microdata import support and other statistical features will be available in mid 2010.
To facilitate involvement from the statistical community in SuperSTAR development plans, Space -Time Research has initiated a SuperSTAR SDMX and DDI Data Exchange group. The SuperSTAR SDMX and DDI Data Exchange Group is a forum for interested parties to review and comment on the SuperSTAR SDMX functional design and use cases, and provide other product development input. To learn more about SDMX at Space-Time or register your interest in joining the group, please contact Jo Deeker at
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About SDMX
SDMX is an initiative to foster standards for the exchange of statistical information. More information about SDMX can be found at sdmx.org