This paper is from Session 10A: Collaborations between Statistics agencies and academia (schools/universities/colleges)

which comes under Topic 10: Innovative collaboration in statistics education

SMARTCensus – making sense of census data

Presenter

• James Nicholson (University of Durham, United Kingdom)

Co-authors

• James Ridgway (University of Durham, United Kingdom)
• Sean McCusker (University of Durham, United Kingdom)

Abstract

Statistics Agencies (SAs) increasingly are putting data into the public domain. However, open access does not mean that data will be displayed and analysed in appropriate ways, or interpreted sensibly. SAs face a number of potential problems associated with getting data used widely and appropriately – there are issues of access to media, and of appropriate data interpretation – statistical literacy in the population is rather low. INCENSE is a collaboration between the SMART Centre at Durham University and the UK Office of National Statistics, designed to make census data more accessible through data visualization, and to understand how politicians and journalists used 2011 census data when it was released. This paper offers a critical account of some challenges of creating effective data visualisations. We will explore the benefits to SAs and to academics from collaborations of this nature.