Doc. Eurostat/ITDG/October 2010/2.1b
IT Directors' Group
19 and 20 October 2010
BECH Building, 5, rue Alphonse Weicker, Luxembourg-Kirchberg
Room AMPÈRE
Renewal of mandates
STNE
Item 2.1b of the agenda
1
Renewal of STNE mandate
1.Purpose of this document
The aim of this document is to report on the renewal of STNE mandate.
The ITDG is asked to:
- comment on the proposed mandate content.
- approve the proposed mandate of the SISAI (Annex I);
- provide suggestions for the first SISAI meeting topics and offer contributions.
2.Background
For over ten years STNE meets once a year. The mandate of STNE was reviewed in 2001. The current mandate is a list of Tasks, functions and outputs as follows:
- Analysis of needs in IT within the ESS in the area of information exchange and co-operative work.
- Drafting of a biannual work programme setting out priorities for the launching of initiatives in the area of telematic networks, EDI and standardisation, to be submitted to the IT Steering Committee[1].
- Implementation of the approved work programme.
- Acting as the IDA sectoral committee for statistics.
- Liaising with the relevant standard bodies.
- Responding to specific requests of the IT Steering Committee
The main focus was then on information exchange within then ESS. The last dozen or so years of STNE were very fruitful. It followed creation of Single Entry Point (SEP) at Eurostat (the service allowing transmission of data and metadata to and from Eurostat as well as could act as intermediary in transmission of data and metadata to other international organisations and among Statistical Agencies {SAs}). Today vast majority of traffic passes through SEP. Recently STNE went along introduction of SDMX. Today we think that SDMX is here to stay[2] due to value added it brings to the statistical offices. STNE acted also as sectoral committee for Eurostat IDA(BC) (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, {Business and Citizens}) projects. The IDA work stimulated progress in the area of data exchange and related standards. It built Eurostat self sufficiency in this area so today participation in such programs is no longer a necessary condition for advance. However the last ten years have changed profoundly the IT landscape within Statistical Agencies of EU and associated countries and of international organisations.
Ten years in the IT area is a lot. During that time a lot has changed. In the ESS we have totally new IT landscape. The profound changes are described in detail in Annex II (background STNE paper). Consequently in that paper Eurostat proposed renewal of STNE mandate. Presentation of the paper started the process described in the next section of this paper. In the paper, two options for the future direction of STNE were proposed: one more towards SDMX second “one level below CIO” dealing with current issues. In both options wider involvement of ESS members were sought. Again these options are described in more detail in Annex II.
3.STNE mandate renewal process description
During 25th STNE there was an agenda item devoted to the renewal of its mandate. As the seed for the discussion Eurostat paper (Annex II) was used. The discussion concluded (see Annex III) that mandate renewal is due and more exchanges, more coherence and global work are the keys of the future. The proposed process was agreed. Members asked to use web accessible tool to do the mandate preparation so every one can consult the draft.
The process started with asking for volunteers to create a group that through collaborative work creates the new mandate. The following countries kindly offered to work in the group CZ, IE, FR, NL, NO, SI, PT and UK (joined after the session) together with UNECE and Eurostat.
The collaborative workspace was set up by Eurostat ( workspace contained one web page with draft mandate and discussion forum. The following join the space as editors and between June 17th and Jul 15th and contributed to the mandate final draft contents and/or participated in the discussion forum: FR, TR, CZ, NO, SI, IE, PT, UK and UNECE. NL used email to provide feedback.
The work was done by direct editing by the group members the web page contents. On 27th July and 25th August Eurostat send reminders about draft and final version and opportunities and deadlines to comment. The optional telephone conference was not considered necessary by the group and the final draft mandate was approved to be presented to the ITDG.
Also the proposal to change the name to Statistical Information Systems Architecture and Integration (SISAI) was approved to better reflect the group content.
The terms of reference are presented for ITDG approval. Since SISAI is supposed to be "one level below ITDG" and closely related to ITDG you are also invited to give SISAI an initial direction by suggesting subjects for the first meeting and offering contributions to set the standard.
Once the terms of reference are approved you will be asked to nominate a person for the SISAI meeting.
4.New mandate
Enclosed please find in the Annex I the proposed terms of reference of SISAI for your comments and approval. The terms of reference associate SISAI closely with ITDG.
First SISAI seeks to maximise involvement of ESS members looking for more collaborative approach.
The scope of activities covers IT areas of contemporary interest their links with business processes, including sharing, aiming at further integration of the ESS and use of common tools and services.
SISAI aspires to provide an ESS wide forum for exchange of experiences and good practices regarding information systems leading to convergence of our standards. This applies not only to projects led by Eurostat but also Member States' driven ones.
5.Conclusions
In the time of limited resources many of us look for creative solutions or for smart ways of sharing the burden or solving our problems. With the progress of IT these issues now stretch throughout our entire business process. It looks like we are approaching The Age of Digital Entanglement[3] where individual is not able to master all the parts of the IT system and has to rely on others and look into collaborative and thus standardised solutions.
It clearly looks like what proposed for SISAI has potential to help us working on needed solutions and potential to answer our questions. Consequently, we should give SISAI a try and provide it a concerted push in the right direction.
ANNEX I – Proposed terms of reference for SISAI(formerly STNE)
1. BACKGROUND / ORIGIN
1.1. The STNE (Statistics, Telematic Networks and Electronic Data Interchange) group during its June 2010 meeting concluded that it should change to better respond to needs and challenges of today. It was agreed that STNE should transform itself into SISAI (Statistical Information Systems Architecture and Integration, hereafter referred as the Group).
2. MEMBERSHIP
2.1. The Group consists of IS/IT experts, representatives of members of the ESS.
2.2. Observers from other national and international statistical organisations are welcomed.
2.3. The secretariat is provided by Eurostat
3. MANDATE / REPORTING AUTHORITY
3.1. The terms of reference of the Group were approved by the ITDG (IT Directors Group) in October 2010
3.2. The Group works under ITDG guidance.
3.3 The Group shall provide periodic updates on its activities to the joint UNECE / Eurostat / OECD meetings on the Management of Statistical Information Systems (MSIS)
4. OBJECTIVES
4.1. Covers the activities of the ESS in the area of statistical information systems and their links with related business processes, including moves towards a shared statistical business and information architecture, aiming at further integration of the ESS and use of common tools and services.
4.2. Provides a forum for exchange of experiences and good practices among information systems architects from national and international statistical organisations.
4.3. Facilitates and encourages implementation of common technical standards, services and recommendations in the field of statistical computing throughout the ESS.
4.4. Analyses requirements within the ESS in the area of IT systems architecture & co-operative work towards formal models, and an infrastructure for technical and business collaboration activities.
4.5. Analyses statistical information systems frameworks in terms of overall architectural principles and makes recommendation for usage in ESS.
4.6. Networks with the relevant ESS and international bodies.
4.7. Technically evaluates software developed within the ESS and proposes development, maintenance and improvement promoting sharable solutions.
4.8. Responds to specific requests of the ITDG.
5. TIMETABLE
5.1. Meetings are organised every year, usually once per year, in the spring.
6. METHODS OF WORK / TYPES OF ACTIVITES
6.1. Exchange of information and discussion during annual meetings: conference-style presentations, discussion and decisions on specific proposals or ideas.
6.2. Internet information exchange means, exchange forums, e.g. wikis.
7. OUTPUT
7.1. Proliferation of state-of-the-art knowledge and good practices among ESS Members in the area of the Group mandate.
7.2. Reports, guidelines, standards and issues for ITDG consideration, information or approval.
7.3. Group operating rules, meeting minutes meeting documents and presentations.
7.4. Support for the IT & Methodology objectives of the European Statistical Programme in the area of the Group mandate.
ANNEX II – Background STNE paper introducing the Discussion over the future of STNE, its content and purpose.
/ Unit B-5: Statistical information technologies‘Statistics, Telematic Networks & EDI’
Working Group
25TH meeting
15-16 June 2010
BECHBuilding
ROOM Quetelet
LUXEMBOURG
ITEM 6
DOCUMENT STNE/10/25/06
Scope and purposes of the STNE working groupDiscussion over the future of STNE, its content and purpose.
(For discussion)
1.Purpose of this document
1.1.This document describes draft ideas to re-organise STNE to better respond to needs and challenges of today. Member States are asked:
to express their general opinion on the idea of changing STNE mandate;
to comment on the draft change options: improve or accept them and voice their preferences
to present their own alternatives regarding the future of STNE.
to set up procedure and then participate in it in order to determine and establish future of STNE.
2.background
2.1.For over ten years STNE meets once a year. The mandate of STNE was reviewed in 2001. The current Tasks, functions and outputs are as follows:
- Analysis of needs in IT within the ESS in the area of information exchange and co-operative work.
- Drafting of a biannual work programme setting out priorities for the launching of initiatives in the area of telematic networks, EDI and standardisation, to be submitted to the IT Steering Committee[4].
- Implementation of the approved work programme.
- Acting as the IDA sectoral committee for statistics.
- Liaising with the relevant standard bodies.
- Responding to specific requests of the IT Steering Committee
2.2.The main focus was then on information exchange within then ESS. Te last dozen or so years of STNE was very fruitful. It followed creation of Single Entry Point (SEP) at Eurostat (the service allowing transmission of data and metadata to and from Eurostat as well as could act as intermediary in transmission of data and metadata to other international organisations and among Statistical Agencies {SAs}). Today vast majority of traffic passes through SEP. Recently STNE went along introduction of SDMX. Today we think that SDMX is here to stay[5] due to valu added it brings to the statistical offices. STNE acted also as sectoral committee for Eurostat IDA{BC} (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, {Business and Citizens}) projects. The IDA work stimulated progress in the area of data exchange and related standards. It built Eurostat self sufficiency in this area so today participation in such programs is no longer a necessary condition for advance. However the last ten years have changed profoundly the IT landscape within Statistical Agencies of EU and associated countries and of international organisations.
3.Landscape Today
3.1.With the maturity of SEP and advance of SDMX the STNE agenda became dominated by the latter topic. Recently in natural way the SDMX related presentation (those for the most part from Eurostat) domination takes place in the STNE (annex 2). This also leads to cooperation with Metadata Working Group taking place right after STNE and having a common session with STNE.
3.2.Now the IT Steering Committee is called ITDG (IT Directors Group). CIOs from EU SAs meet once a year to discuss current issues related to the ITDG mandate (annex 1).Recently the meetings were dominated by issues of (common) corporate IT (business) architecture. With the issuing of the Commission Communication on the production method for EU statistics[6] this became even more pronounced.
3.3.It is worth mentioning four initiatives (conferences) for wider audience, i.e., beyond the EU and affiliates:
3.3.1.OECD / UNECE Expert Group on SDMX is a meeting of SDMX experts with the primary focus on data exchange and data sharing within the OECD network, i.e. between OECD and its Member countries.In order to reduce or eliminate duplication of work, the Group also promotes technical cooperation between OECD and other international organisations involved in data and metadata exchange with OECD. The Group is closely linked to the SDMX initiative. During last meeting it was agreed that the meeting will in future rotate between sponsor group and member country national statistical organisations.
3.3.2.UNECE-Eurostat-OECD Meeting on Statistical metadata (METIS) gets together statistical metadata experts to facilitate harmonisation of data models and structures for statistical metadata in the context of statistical information processing and dissemination; provides a forum for discussing metadata issues. This work complements other international initiatives that deal with the data collection needs of international statistical agencies.
One notable contribution of METIS is fine tuning of the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) that is now being accepted by majority of EU statistical agencies[7]
3.3.3.UNECE-Eurostat-OECD Meeting on Management of Statistical Information Systems (MSIS) is a gathering of CIOs aiming to:
provide a forum for exchange of experiences
collect, discuss and make available examples of good practice
facilitate implementation of relevant standards and recommendations
MSIS meetings are usually held each year to consider issues related to information technology (IT) governance and management, system architecture, accessibility and usability.
3.3.4.Sharing Advisory Board (SAB) is very focused as it aims at creation of a system for sharing technical solutions between statistical organizations.
Note: Both SAB and CORA (see report their activities to ITDG and MSIS at each respective meeting.
3.4.Over last several years STNE coverage became biased responding better to today’s challenges towards SDMX developing into a dominant theme in the data transmission/exchange world.
3.5.The CIOs of Statistical Agencies of Member States have two possibilities to meet and discuss current issues a year: ITDG and MSIS. On the other hand there is no meeting of Chief IT Architects of EU Statistical Agencies that would discuss the parallel issues to those of CIOs but on more technical level.
3.6.Now part of the ESS IT is being developed by ESSNets[8]. The two most known ones are on SDMX working on further integration of SDMX in the IT infrastructure of ESS and CORA (COmmon Reference Architecture) looking for a recipe of a common IT architecture allowing easy exchange of services, software, data and metadata.
3.7.A shared infrastructure would result in a need a need to certify the services proposed at ESS level in order they comply with some standards: for data transmission for SDMX, for protection of confidentiality, for data access and information, etc. Before certification, the standards to be operated should be commonly defined and agreed.
3.8.There is demand for remote access to and exchange of various confidential data (microdata for researchers, remote access and validation for e.g., case of Euro Groups Register).
3.9.Currently the meetings of IT representatives of Statistical agencies tend to concentrate on the following issues:
3.9.1.Corporate IT architecture and its derivation from corporate business architecture
3.9.2.Sharing of software or services, including relation to multiplicity of corporate IT architectures.
3.9.3.SDMX
3.9.4.Innovation in providing data to their users
3.10.Commission Communication on the production method for EU statistics stipulates that new IT tools will continue to be developed to improve efficiency, reduce burden, and enhance statistical quality. As new technologies become available, there is a clear drive to maximise their use and to gear statistical methods toward them. Reduction of heterogeneity of IT applications within the ESS and integration of IT architectures following the respective business cases: the ongoing efforts to re-engineer the production processes that are already under way will continue. This concerns various initiatives such as introduction of a more interactive production chain on the basis of "data at the source". New forms of communicating with users and producers and new developments in information technology, are likely to result in profound changes in communication channels and data handling and storage.
3.11.The participation of Eurostat in IDA projects is coming to an end as ESS IT has now capacity to tackle these issues on its own.
4.Possible adjustments to STNE scope
4.1.Based on the facts presented in section 3 it seems desirable to adjust STNE mandate and activities in order to better respond to nowadays needs of EU statistical agencies. The authors of this document put forward two options to start discussion.
4.2.First option would be an STNE becoming an SDMX technical meeting. There is currently no such meeting at the EU level allowing EU members work out the solution applicable to ESS. Then it could be seen as EU counterpart of the Expert Group on SDMX that promotes technical cooperation within ESS in data and metadata exchange using SDMX. It could be an exchange mechanism and leading source of standards, guidelines and good practices in this area.
4.3.The other option put forward would be a meeting “one level below CIO” dealing with current issues, e.g., those mentioned in 3.9. The gathering would comprise leading IT technical experts from ESS statistical agencies. The objectives of such group need to be precisely defined: they could be architectural, workflow recommendations, process tooling ideas, etc.Currently the leading IT architects from ESS statistical agencies do not have any forum to exchange and coverage their ideas. Consequently such transformation of STNE could fill the gap. On one hand STNE can be seen as the preparation of issues for ITDG. On the other hand a meeting for finding technical solutions (or feasibility) to questions put by ITDG. Additionally such meeting of experts would be much better technical interlocutor of ESSNets, like current ones on corporate IT architecture and SDMX. Apparently a need for high level but technical gathering was expressed by a few ESS CIOs. It is worth noting that SDMX would be one of prominent items in such STNE setup.