Archive:Tutorial:Updating the yearbook

Timing and procedure

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 Eurostat 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 tutorials of Statistics Explained.
Make sure that you approve the page when finished ("Director/Editor approval" on the bottom of the draft article, see the tutorial "Sighting a page").
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, figures and maps, 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) and data for the maps is complete (containing also titles, subtitles, footnotes and sources) and attached (= uploaded) to the new article, see the tutorial "Inserting Excel files".

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) complemented by emails, telephone conversations and face-to-face discussions when appropriate.

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. You can have a look at the German and French terminolgy and any comments and improvement proposals are welcome; you are, however, not obliged to do so.
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 (English version)

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).
If needed, production units will be contacted a second time and asked to approve (=sight) again the draft article.
Jukka Piirto will then perform the final checks from the point of view of the Disemination unit and if everything is OK he will validate (the update of) the article which thereby will become visible to the outside world.

Stage 4 of updating: translations of an article

This phase doesn't require any input from the production units.

After the update of an article has been finalised the translation input files will be prepared by INFORMA: an English Word file containing the text of the article (in wiki format, i.e. with the mark-up code elements within the text) and the at least partly trilingual Excel file (together with the previus version's translation input files as reference files).
The Dissemination unit B4 will send the files to translation and agree with DG Translation on the translation deadlines.
All Eurostat yearbook articles are translated into German and French and a selection of them (17 articles) are translated in addition into all 19 other official EU languages than Irish and Maltese: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.
INFORMA will insert the translations into Statistics Explained.
The Dissemination unit will check and validate (--> publish) them.

Special note for the updates from 1.1.2015 onwards

All updates of articles from 1.1.2015 onwards, date of Lithuania joining the euroa area, should present the EA-19 aggregate, if available; data for EA-18 may also be published alongside the EA-19 data.

Help pages and contact persons

Overview of most important Statistics Explained tutorials

(or see complete alphabetical list)

General Statistics Explained help page

Editor-in-Chief of the online Eurostat yearbook: Jukka Piirto (tel. 34251)
Statistics Explained: Louise Corselli-Nordblad (tel. 34088)

Statistics Explained courses can be organised on request. For individual specific questions please contact Louise Corselli-Nordblad.