Cros portal for-knowledge

1. Eurostat
2016 ESS Modernisation Workshop
Bucharest 16-17 March 2016
CROS-Portal – drowning in
deliverables but starved for
knowledge
Towards an efficient knowledge repository
Wilfried Grossmann, GOPA

2. Eurostat
Outline of the presentation
• Introduction
• Knowledge repository requirements
• User interface requirements
• Administrative requirements
• Concluding remarks
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3. Eurostat
Introduction
• This talk is about work in progress
• It is based on personal experience with the CROS-
Portal
• We do not propose a final solution but want to
trigger discussion for further development
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4. Eurostat
Introduction
• From the CROS-Portal: “About the CROS-Portal”:
The CROS-Portal is dedicated to the collaboration
between researchers and Official Statistics in Europe
and beyond
• The CROS-Portal should be instrumental for the
transfer of know-how among ESS members
• Is the CROS-Portal fit for this task?
Let’s try!
(all screenshots produced on 18.2.2016)
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5. Eurostat
Introduction – Example 1
• I want to get informed about ESSnets
• On the CROS-Portal I choose GROUPS, select
ESSnet and find a number of possible further
specifications
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Introduction – Example 1
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7. Eurostat
Introduction – Example 1
• At a glance Annual Assessments are probably
useful
• The next slide shows the page for Annual
Assessments and points to the problems in
accessing further information
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8. Eurostat
Introduction – Example 1
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9. Eurostat
Introduction – Example 2
• Vision 2020 is a hot topic; I want to get informed
• Besides the strange question the search gives a
number of good results, comparable to Google
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Introduction – Example 2
• But in contrast to Google which allows access by
one click the first click redirects me to
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11. Eurostat
Introduction – Example 2
• Moreover, the sidebar
for refining the search
contains a number of
strange entries under
the heading “Filter by
book”, which I
understand as a kind
of directory of the
CROS-Portal
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12. Eurostat
Introduction – Conclusions so far
• There is an urgent need for improving the process
of knowledge discovery on the CROS-Portal
• A better way for retrieving the knowledge, in
particular the results of the ESSnets and
Centres of Excellence (CoE)
• A more user friendly access of the knowledge
on the CROS-Portal (a complaint heard many a
time)
• A better administration of the contents on the
CROS-Portal
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13. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
• Here, we look at the CROS-Portal mainly from the
perspective of the ESSnets and CoE but the ideas
seem applicable also for other types of
knowledge on the CROS-Portal
• For facilitating knowledge discovery it seems
useful to start from a number of Guiding
Principles for structuring/tagging the available
knowledge
Towards a topic map
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14. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 1: Goal orientation
• Research in Official Statistics starts with the
question:
• Which knowledge is needed for achieving the
goals?
• These policy-related goals are laid down in:
• The actual Statistical Programme
• The ESS Vision 2020
• Examples of goals:
• Knowledge sharing, User requirements, Efficiency
in production, Quality of statistical products, …
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15. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 2: Activity orientation
• Goals are usually achieved by activities which
answer the question:
• How are the goals achieved?
• A model for organising all statistical activities is
the Generic Activity Model for Statistical
Organisations (GAMSO)
• Consequently GAMSO defines a framework for
structuring the activities and the documentation of
the activities, i.e. the documents on the CROS-
Portal
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16. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 2: Activity orientation
• The structure for the activities is reflected on the
CROS-Portal in the section TOPICS
• Activities need an institutional framework defined
on the CROS-Portal in the section GROUPS
• Groups for more production oriented activities
(ESSnets, CoE, parts of General interest)
• Groups for more management oriented activities
(ESS governance, Networks)
• Groups for more strategic oriented activities
(ESS.VIP, Groups of specific events)
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17. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 3: Domain orientation
• Official Statistics is traditionally organised in
different statistical domains, like business
statistics, social statistics, demography,…
• There exist a number of methods and results
which are specific to these domains, e.g.,
seasonal adjustment
• Caveat:
Do not confuse domains with a
stove-pipe principle !!!
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18. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 4: User orientation
• The CROS-Portal addresses different types of
users:
Practitioners, decision makers, statistical
methodologists, IT-experts,…
• Each user group has different information needs
and is interested in a specific thematic orientation
• In the ideal case there exists information
tailored to such groups
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19. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 5: Management orientation
• Information is often connected with access rights
• Frequently different versions of information are
produced
• Information about activities is usually split
according to its role regards to the activity
(administration, business cases, examples,
strategic considerations, methodological
content,…)
• There exists information of different
relevance !!
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20. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Principle 6: Context orientation
• No information stands alone but has to be
understood in the context of other pieces of
information
• Example: We can look at the vision objective
“Benefit from (micro)data exchange respecting
statistical confidentiality” from
• A methodological perspective (CoE on SDC)
• An IT-perspective (Task force IT security)
• A general perspective (General interest group
microdata access)
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21. Eurostat
Knowledge repository requirements
Putting all together
• The principles define something like a web of
keywords for the information on the CROS-
Portal
• In statistical terminology:a metadata system for
the contents of the documents on the CROS-
Portal
• In knowledge representation terminology:
a topic map for the CROS-Portal
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Knowledge repository requirements
Keywords as a topic map for ESSnets
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User Interface Requirements
• The CROS-Portal is a repository for well
structured information
• This structure is defined by the principles
discussed in the previous slides
• These principles are fully compatible with the
general concepts of Official Statistics (GAMSO)
and the Eurostat policy (ESS Vision 2020,
Statistical Programme) (red boxes in topic map)
• Additionally the principles reflect realism related
to statistical practice (blue boxes in topic map)
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24. Eurostat
User Interface Requirements
• The user interface has to consider three different
levels:
• The CROS-Portal level (e.g. , structure and
search facilities, terminology, acronyms)
• The search level (search using keyword
filters)
• The information access level (one click for
assessing documents)
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25. Eurostat
Administrative requirements
We mention only three important requirements as
regards the information on ESSnets and CoE
1) Elimination of inconsistencies, partly due to the
migration of the CROS-Portal
2) Guidelines for arriving at a standardised
structure of documents according to the set of
keywords
3) Shared services for uploading documents (e.g.
avoid inconsistencies in access rights for
documents)
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26. Eurostat
Concluding remarks
• There is huge amount of valuable knowledge on
the CROS-Portal
• Access to documents should be improved
• Display of search results should follow the
structural principles and should use advanced
visualisation and presentation techniques
• Elimination of some inconsistencies
• In the long run the governance of the CROS-
Portal should follow a strategic plan
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27. Eurostat
Concluding remarks
• Organisation of the CROS-Portal shows historical
development
• Reconsidering of the structure according to the
actual principles in Official Statistics (GAMSO,
Vision 2020) is necessary
• A transparent structure could be a competitive
advantage of the CROS-Portal compared to
general purpose search tools like Google
Make the CROS-Portal a strategic tool
for the modernisation of the ESS
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28. Eurostat
Concluding remarks
Proposal for the structure of a knowledge repository
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Activities
(How are the goals
achieved?)
Domains
(What are the areas of
knowledge?)
Goals
(Which knowledge is
needed for the goals?)
Context
(How are pieces of
knowledge linked?)
Users
(Who needs what kind of
knowledge?)
Management
(How is knowledge
administered?)
Guiding
principles
for
structure:
GAMSO,
GSBPM,
EA,
SOA

29. Eurostat
Thank you for your attention
Comments and ideas are welcome
wilfried.grossmann@univie.ac.at
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