Transparency in Statistical Information for the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics and All Federal Statistical Agencies (2022) / Chapter Skim
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7 Best Practices for Federal Statistical Agencies
7 Best Practices for Federal Statistical Agencies
Pages 147-170
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From page 147... ...
or Interagency Council on Statistical Policy should consider monitoring how closely the principal U.S. federal statistical agencies follow these tables, acknowledging those agencies that come close to complete adherence to them.
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Census Bureau's Statistical Quality Standards, the American Association for Public Opinion Research Code of Ethics and Practices,1 Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology Statistical Policy Working Paper #31, and the Committee on National Statistics' Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency. The panel wanted to create this new list as an easy reference source of the elements from many of these standard documents with respect to surveys.
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From page 149... ...
the nature of the products, e.g., tabulations, confidential, microdata, or public-use files. Justification for the statistical Description should Information should program and input data relied be updated regularly, be updated regularly, on: Information required versioned, and curated for versioned, curated, and includes easy access.
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, administrative records, or digital trace (Table 7-3) -- the following information should be saved, made public, or both.
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Data collection questionnaire employed All details should be All details should be made (exact wording and skip curated for easy access. publicly available upon patterns)
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Coverage error: Detailed technical reports Releasable technical undercoverage, overcoverage, should be prepared or reports should be duplications by key domains updated for each data prepared, updated, release, versioned, and for each data release, curated for easy access. versioned, curated and made permanently, publicly available on agency Website with DOI.
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analysis of item nonresponse rate by question Percentage of failed edits: Details should be curated Releasable details should assessment of editing for easy access. be made publicly available procedures upon release of estimates, as part of technical reports.
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Further, administrative records the code should be substitution commented to be readable by others and made available on request. Treatments for item The code for the The general description of nonresponse methodology used for the methodology used for treating item nonresponse treating item nonresponse should be retained and should be made available curated for easy access.
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Variability of the official A technical report A high-level report estimates providing details of providing an outline of the estimation of the the estimation of the variability of the official variability of the official estimates, taking into estimates should be made consideration the effects of available to the public. nonresponse on the input datasets used, should be retained.
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NOTES: aSee U.S. Census Bureau Statistical Quality Standards (Requirement A1-3.1)
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be made available to the to the program that would public. impact the continuity of data from one time period to the next DIGITAL TRACE DATA Data disposition: Descriptions of data Descriptions of data source of data elements and how elements and how description of data elements they compare from the they compare from the conceptual link between data information needed in information needed in and information needed for support of the official support of the official statistical product, including statistical product should statistical product should justification for use be retained.
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impact the continuity of data from one time period to the next FOR BOTH ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS AND DIGITAL TRACE DATA Transformations of variables The code(s) for the The description of the (e.g., creation of new variables various transformations various transformations for analysis through recoding used should be retained used and the reasons for or combining multiple items)
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Methods used for variance Details and commented Details and commented estimation code should be curated for code should be made easy access. publicly available on request.
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Methodology reports Any methodology reports Any methodology reports not included in any of the not included in any of the previous cells should be previous cells should be finalized and retained. finalized and made public on the agency Website.
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As a result, Table 7-4 focuses on record linkage or matching, a technique being employed at most, if not all, statistical agencies and which is one of the primary integration techniques currently in use. TABLE 7-4 Documenting Data Integration Issues To be available only To be available externally, Information to retain or archive internally, to program staff to the public Data files that were linked: A description, including A description of the identification of files the metadata, of the specific data files that description of files specific data files that were matched should were matched should be be provided routinely retained.
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Documentation of Paradata While paradata are typically considered for survey data, we see no reason why paradata should not be available for administrative data as well, with analogous measures (see Table 7-5)
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Response paradata reports: Technical reports should Technical reports should response latency be curated for easy access. be made publicly available key stroke studies on agency Website.
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. TABLE 7-6 Archiving of Data To be available only To be available externally, Information to retain or archive internally, to program staff to the public Archiving of treated input data The input datasets used The input datasets and metadata (i.e., modified to produce the official used to produce the to account for failed edits, estimates (i.e., the official estimates (i.e., nonresponse, etc.)
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The official estimates should be stored using persistent identifiers. Recommendation 7.1: The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics and all agencies that produce federal statistics should, to the fullest extent feasible, document their data collection methods, their data treatments, their estimation methodologies, and assessments of the quality of their official estimates, and they should archive their in put datasets and their official estimates to support reproducibility and later reuse, as specified in the tables developed by the panel.
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From page 166... ...
This will result in more sharing and reuse of input data and official statistical estimates and the methods used to produce them with the accompanying knowledge transfers within and among federal statistical agencies and with national statistical offices around the world. In this envisioned future, there will be greater interaction with the public, because today's user also wishes to make use of official statistics for nonstandard tabulations and as input to their own statistical models.
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From page 167... ...
This could be, after a period of adjustment, addressed by sharing data across agencies.3 Further, because the input datasets used to produce official statistics are less likely to be survey data for many programs, and will instead use combinations of survey data, administrative data, and digital trace data, there will be the need to use sophisticated (and currently novel or unknown) models or matching techniques in producing future sets of official statistics.
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Code that prohibit specific data sharing across -- or even within -- federal agencies or with the public. In addition, it is important that the statistical agencies engage in the further development of statistical meta data standards, especially among all the agencies in concert and through international cooperation, such as with the United Nations Economic Com mission for Europe, the Data Documentation Initiative Alliance, and the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange.
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BEST PRACTICES FOR FEDERAL STATISTICAL AGENCIES 169 the agencies to take on new activities that will, at least initially, require additional funds. However, the report also recommends an incremental approach that relies on achievable goals.
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