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FASTER (Flexible Access to Statistics, Tables and Electronic Resources)
http://www.faster-data.org/index.htm

About FASTER
FASTER will create an easy to use and flexible tool for access to official and other statistical data. It will do this by developing an environment, incorporating components of existing systems wherever possible, that takes advantage of recent developments in metadata, client side functionality and Web security and statistical disclosure control.
FASTER is supported by the European Commission under the auspices of the Fifth Framework Programme

Metadata
Statistical metadata is at the core of the FASTER project as developments in metadata within the academic social science and official statistics communities are combined.

Technology
FASTER will make extensive use of XML and RDF in the development of a three tier architecture based on the outcome of two metadata workshops in 2000.

NESSTAR (Networked Social Science Tools and Resources)
www.nesstar.org/

About NESSTAR
NESSTAR has been supported by the European Commission in the Telematics Applications Programme of the IVth Framework and the Information Society Technologies programme of the Vth Framework via the FASTER project.

Papers and presentations
NESSTAR: A Semantic Web Application for Statistical Data and Metadata
Brief introduction to the NESSTAR system and NEOOM. A revised version of a paper presented at the Real World RDF and Semantic Web Applications Workshop, WWW2002 Conference, May 2002.
http://www.nesstar.org/sdk/nesstar2002.pdf

An Infrastructure for Data Dissemination via the Internet
http://www.nesstar.org/papers/NesstarOverview.ppt

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ADDSIA (Access to Distributed Databases for Statistical Information and Analysis)
http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/addsia/

ADDSIA is a multi national reseach project funded by the European Union. It aims to use distributed database techniques and World Wide Web (WWW) technology in order to facilitate more effective access to statistical data by Europe's research and policy community.

Project Summary (From: http://www.ed.ac.uk/ces/Projects/addsia.htm):
The main concept of ADDSIA is to allow aggregated data from different data sources to be passed to a central location and merged using statistical algorithms which take into account the characteristics (defined by metadata) of the system. This project formally ended in March 2000, after a three-month extension. The final year of the project was spent in consolidating the code developed by the partners. The overall approach of ADDSIA assumed a hierarchical situation where Data Providers would supply information on their data to a Domain manager. While we were successful in defining the architecture and developing the framework for capturing data and metadata, we felt that the approach was too restrictive. Consequently we developed the MISSION architecture and this proposal was successful. The new project started in January 2000, and incorporates ideas and code from ADDSIA

Papers and presentations
Metadata and XML for Organizing and Accessing Multiple Statistical Data Sources
http://www.asc.org.uk/Events/Sep99/Pres/yaxin.ppt

Bi, Y., Murtagh, F. (1998). The Roles of Statistical Metadata and XML in Structuring and Retrieving Statistical Information. Proc. of NTTS(New Techniques & Technologies for Statistics)'98.
http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/research/conferences/ntts-98/papers/cp/011c.pdf

MISSION (Multi-Agent Integration Of Shared Statistical Information Over The (Inter)Net)
http://www.epros.ed.ac.uk/mission/

MISSION aims to provide a modular system of software which will enable providers of official statistics to publish their data in a unified, and unifying, framework, and to allow consumers of statistics to access these data in an informed manner with minimum effort.

Project Summary (From: http://www.ed.ac.uk/ces/Projects/mission.htm)
The main goal of this project is to utilise the World Wide Web and emerging agent based technologies to provide a modular system of software which will enable providers of official statistics to publish their data in a unified framework, and to allow consumers of statistics to access these data in an informed manner with minimum effort. The project is progressing well within the proposed timeplan. Several deliverables have been completed: presentation material, initial technical implementation plan, public web site and the synthesised description of user needs. In addition, a private web site has been set up to aid communication within the consortium and procedures have been agreed for communication and peer reviewing. There have been three successful project meetings as well as a more technical oriented one. Further, there has been good progress, using the above-named procedures, in the formal specification of the system and in agreement on the architecture and system integration. Planning for the first test in February 2001 is now underway.

Papers and presentations
Yaxin Bi and Joanne Lamb(2001). Facilitating Integration of Distributed Statistical Databases Using Metadata and XML. Proc. of ETK&NTTS 2001.
http://webfarm.jrc.cec.eu.int/etk-ntts/Papers/final_papers/en187.pdf

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METANET
http://www.epros.ed.ac.uk/metanet/

MetaNet - A network of excellence for harmonising and synthesising the development of statistical metadata - is a part of the European Union Fifth framework Research and Development program. Specifically it is part of the Information Society Technology strand, number IST-1999-29093.

Project Summary (From: http://www.ed.ac.uk/ces/Projects/metanet.htm)
MetaNet will be a network consisting of experts and users from NSIs, users of official statistics, researchers and developers to consolidate the work on metadata models that has been carried out in NSIs, in the fourth framework, in the Eurostat Supcom projects as well as in current work in fifth framework projects.

I2T / FERRETT

Census Bureau's DataFerrett
http://dataferrett.census.gov/TheDataWeb/index.html
DataFerrett supports metadata searches across surveys, on-the-fly variable recoding, complex tabulations, and graphics. DataFerrett is working to promote interoperability with the DDI format.

Putting Government Information at Citizens' Fingertips. Envision 16(3).
http://www.npaci.edu/envision/v16.3/dice.html
Database Design and Data Loading
http://www.sdsc.edu/~baru/dg_2000.ppt

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VDC
The Virtual Data Center Project: An Operational Social Science Digital Data Library
http://thedata.org/index.shtml

An operational, open-source, digital library to enable the sharing of quantitative research data, and the development of distributed virtual collections of data and documentation.

[from the Introduction page]
The demand for social science data exists, and will only grow with easier availability. The use of data to researchers is obvious, but students and citizens also need to access to data if they are to understand the world and the issues of public policy that the nation faces. They also need to understand data to manage their own lives effectively - whether that entails managing their health or their money. Our project will bring social science data closer to students in elite universities and in community colleges, and closer to citizens through public libraries.
Under a grant from the Digital Libraries Initiative - Phase 2, we are developing the Virtual Data Center (VDC), an instrument to manage and share numerical social science data easily for teaching and research purposes across multiple institutions.

Integrated Meta Data Base (IMDB)

[from http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-533-XIE/about.htm]
Integrated metadata - Statistics Canada has developed an Integrated MetaData Base (IMDB) to provide a central repository for qualitative information regarding statistical programs at Statistics Canada. It integrates many existing repositories and provides new features such as:

A direct link between on-line services such as CANSIM, Canadian Statistics and the Online Catalogue and the meta data pertaining to the statistical program that provided the information

Presently metadata pertains to survey-level information such as a general description of the survey and the methodological procedures used to collect, verify and analyze data. This includes sampling plans, data capture, error detection, estimation methods, time series processes and disclosure control methods. Data quality measures such as response rate, coverage error, imputation and sampling error will also be described. Sampling error will be expressed as coefficients of variation. It is also possible to directly access full-length documents such as data quality reports and user guides.

Metadata is now kept up to date with each data release. Survey managers update the existing metadata to provide information that pertains to the most recent data release. An image of the questionnaire used to collect the data will also be provided.

The next phase of the project will include detailed metadata about variables being measured.

Papers and presentations
Johanis, P. (2001). Role of the Integrated Metabase at Statistical Canada
http://www.statcan.ca/english/conferences/symposium2001/session21/s21c.pdf
[abstract by the author]
The Integrated Metadatabase is a corporate repository of information on each of Statistics Canada¡¯s surveys. This information includes a description of data sources and methodology, definitions of concepts and variables measured and indicators of data quality. It provides an effective vehicle for communicating data quality to data users. Its coverage is exhaustive of Statistics Canada¡¯s data holdings, the information on data quality provided complies with the Policy in Informing Users of Methodology and Data Quality and it is presented in a
consistent and systematic fashion.