Archive:Tutorial:Updating the yearbook

Procedure and timing

As described in the document Doc. 811_2.1 from the Directors Meeting of 5.6.2013, the online Eurostat yearbook has rolling updates of its Statistics Explained articles. Each article will be updated according to its own (data release) calendar.

Production units within Eurostat have been asked to:

either make changes and updates in Statistics Explained directly;
or indicate to the yearbook's editor-in-chief Jukka Piirto by e-mail any detailed changes to be implemented by our contractor (INFORMA).

Equally production units were asked to indicate:

when they would be updating articles themselves or;
when data would be available on Eurobase for INFORMA to make the updates.

Production units may extend their deadline either by:

making an appropriate comment in the Talk page of Statistics Explained (using the Discussion button on the article for which an extension is required) or;
directly contacting Jukka Piirto.

Stage 1 of updating: drafting

For production units updating articles themselves

Please follow the guidance given below and in the tutorial of Statistics Explained.
Make sure that you approve the page when finished (unit approval on the bottom of the draft article).
The article will then be reviewed by INFORMA to ensure a consistent use of standards in the English language employed, the formatting and style of tables and figures, and the presentation in Statistics Explained.

For production units producing new articles themselves

Please follow the same guidance as indicated above for updating articles.
Please pay particular attention to ensure that an Excel file containing the tables, figures (and data for the figures) is complete (containing also titles, subtitles, footnotes and sources) and attached to the new article.

For production units that have indicated that INFORMA should update the articles

Please ensure that you have communicated to Jukka Piirto:

a date on or after which extractions may be made from Eurobase for use in the article;
any changes you want to be implemented in your articles — these must be provided before the deadline for extraction that you have indicated; please be as precise as possible with any requested changes as INFORMA will implement these directly in Statistics Explained.

As far as possible, all further communication should be done through Statistics Explained only (using the discussion page).

Stage 2 of updating: review by production units

Regardless of whether your article has been reviewed or updated by INFORMA, production units will be contacted when work on an article by INFORMA has been completed. By this stage

the text will have been reviewed/updated;
the Excel files will have been reviewed/updated and formatted and attached to the article — they will contain the English version of the tables and figures as well as German and French translations of labels in so far as they are available from previous editions or other available sources;
the images of tables and figures in the articles will not have been updated — this will only be done once the content has been finalised.

This stage is an opportunity for production units to review an article (text and Excel file). Text changes may be made directly to the draft page in Statistics Explained. Changes to the Excel files should be:

either explained on the discussion page;
or made directly in the Excel file and clearly identified through:

the use of coloured text (other than red which is reserved for missing translations);
and/or shading of cells;
and/or comment boxes describing clearly the changes.

Approval of the articles by the production units may be done by SIGHTING the DRAFT article in Statistics Explained, or exceptionally by informing Jukka Piirto that the review has been completed.

Stage 3 of updating: finalisation of an article

INFORMA will review any feedback from production units. Any remaining issues will be addressed bilaterally between the production units and Jukka Piirto.
INFORMA will upload the final images for an article once the content has been finalised (final text in Statistics Explained and a final Excel file in English only attached to the article).
Production units will be contacted a second time and asked to SIGHT (again) the DRAFT article.
Jukka Piirto will then VALIDATE the article.

Special notes for the updates starting in the latter half of 2013 or first half of 2014

Formatting

A completely new formatting of tables and figures will be introduced, based solely on the standards for Statistics Explained. Production units that have chosen to update their own articles are encouraged to use the Excel files from the earlier version as a starting point: INFORMA will reformat these to the current standards at the same time as reviewing the content and inserting available translations in German and French.

Excel 2010

From the the latter half of 2013 onwards Excel 2010 will be used. Production units that have chosen to update their own articles may continue to use earlier versions of Excel for their initial draft. However, once the Excel file for an article has been reformatted to the new standards in Excel 2010 it should be maintained in this format (with the appropriate .xlsx extension).

Enlargement

All articles should contain data for EU-28 insofar as these data are available in Eurobase; data for EU-27 may also be published alongside the EU-28 data.
Croatia should be treated like any other EU Member State and therefore should be included in all tables and figures (in the case of figures, if data are not available for Croatia then this should be footnoted as not available). Data for Croatia should appear in the appropriate place, in other words sorted between France and Italy in protocol order or sorted among the Member States in ranked tables or figures.

A small number of Yearbook articles will be updated more than once a year, for example Government finance statistics. In cases when these multiple-update-articles had already been updated by the relevant production units before 1 July 2013 the comments above about EU-28 and Croatia will not apply. Subsequent updates (after 1 July 2013) of such multiple-update-articles should take account of these two comments and so include Croatia and try to include EU-28 data.

For all regular articles (updated once per year) the two comments above about EU-28 and Croatia will apply. In the event that such an article had already been updated by a production unit before 1 July 2013, when reviewing the articles INFORMA will add EU-28 data to tables and figures (or replace EU-27 with EU-28 data in figures that only contain data for European aggregates), add Croatian data (or move it into the list of Member States if already available), and edit the text accordingly.

Support

Editor-in-chief of the online Eurostat yearbook: Jukka Piirto (tel. 34251)
Statistics Explained: Marc Debusschere (tel. 31985)

Statistics Explained courses can be organised on request. For individual specific questions please contact Marc Debusschere.