Guidelines for statistical metadata on the Internet

The Conference of European Statisticians discussed Internet and metadata at its 1997 plenary session. Following a request of the Bureau of the Conference, Statistics Norway prepared some draft Guidelines for Statistical Metadata on Internet on the basis of earlier discussions. The comments made on that draft by the Work Session on Metadata (Geneva, 18–20 February 1998) have been taken into account in preparing the current version. As recommended by the Bureau, the Guidelines were submitted to the 1998 plenary session of the Conference.

The paper proposes some guidelines for minimum standards for statistical metadata on the Internet. Internet represents a lot of challenges and provides a lot of possibilities, but it is believed that, at this stage, minimum standards should be realistic and narrowly focused rather than broad and encompassing. As statistical institutes are at different stages of developing a web service, the document should be regarded more as guidelines rather than as strict standards.

In addition to the proposed guidelines, the paper mentions some more ambitious possibilities. However, technology with its challenges and possibilities changes rapidly. This may necessitate future revisions in the proposed guidelines, whether they are regarded as standards or just as recommendations.