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Data at Your Fingertips: Bringing More Information to You via the Web

Wednesday, 10:30am - 12:00pm

Speakers:

  • Carol Kavanagh
    Web Manager, Bureau of Economic Analysis
    bio
  • Sandra Cannon
    Chief, Economic Information Management, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
    bio
  • Marshall DeBerry
    FedStats Project Manager, Bureau of Justice Statistics
    bio

Moderator and Session Organizer:

Barbara Fraumeni

Abstract:

This session will highlight web enhancements, portals and products in three areas:

Web Page Enhancements and More Interactive Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis: BEA is continuing to provide more interactive data and make web page and other enhancements to facilitate data use and analysis. The presenter will discuss format changes; new web page features, such as the one-page overviews of the U.S. economy for each of the major releases, along with accessible graphs; the opportunity for users to interactively access Gross Domestic Product by industry data and underlying detail for the National Income and Product Accounts; and the opportunities to construct - via user-supplied specifications - color-coded Gross State Product maps.

The Federal Reserve Board and XML: National Data and International Standards. Web users have become savvy surfers who are no longer content to look at static information on a text page. Users of Federal Reserve Board data are no exception, and in an effort to address the needs of these more sophisticated users, the Board has undertaken to provide interactive access to the wealth of data it provides to the public. The presenter will discuss a web product that will allow both novice and power users easy access to exactly the data they want. From guided queries to batch download capabilities, users will be able to specify which series, date range and format they'd like for their download. Data will be stored in XML using the SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange) standard being developed by the Bank for International Settlements in conjunction with other international agencies. Data stored in XML using this new standard can be easily served up in a variety of formats, including XML, which will facilitate data exchange with other agencies that use the standard.

The FedStats Statistical Portal: The Gateway to the Federal Statistical System. The FedStats web site (www.fedstats.gov) serves as a portal for over 100 Federal agencies that provide statistical information to the public. An important enabling objective of FedStats is to help users find quickly the information they need, located across multiple separate agencies, without first having to know how government programs and/or data files are organized. Available to the public since May 1997, FedStats continues to meet, and improve on its goal of providing the public with easy standardized access to the wide array of Federal statistics. This presenter will provide an overview of the key features of the FedStats site, with particular focus on the statistical information available via the MapStats section of the site.

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