Machine Learning

Progress

(The portions in blue below are links that should lead you to documents providing more details on the Machine Learning project Home page)

There are now 29 Team Members from 14 organisations and 12 countries. A Responses to the questionnairewas produced and shared. The participants reported Machine Learning projects reported by team members on a wide range of data sources, processes, objectives and level of maturity. Another 5 persons were added to a distribution. They will also contribute to the project.
Given the interest of the majority of members to work on pilot studies, the planning focused on WP1
A planning meeting was held on April 4 2019 virtual planning meeting - documentation, followed a by progress meeting on 2019-04-16 - Progress meeting.
Leads for the three work packages were identified.
The Project context and objectives of the project were set. The ultimate objective is to advance the research, development and application of machine learning techniques to add value to the production of official statistics.
It was agreed to conduct pilot studies (WP1) on four themes:
- Classification and coding on more traditional data (survey, census, administrative/register); led by UK - ONS
- Edit and imputation on more traditional data; lead to be identified
- Imagery; led by Mexico - INEGI
- Web and sentiment data; led by Poland - Statistics Poland
A lead organisation was identified for three of the four pilot study themes
Each organisation was asked to Proposing Machine Learning Projects for pilot studies. A form was developed to capture Machine Learning Project - Baseline information.
Inference with Big Data, namely sensor data, and related challenges was reported by several organisations; it will be addressed in WP2 on data quality
The ONS have booked venues in London and Newport to hold a sprint meeting from May 13-15.

Next Steps

Obtain baseline information on each machine learning project proposed by the organisations to finalize the specific objectives and tasks of each WP1 pilot study
Set the detailed objectives and tasks of the WP2 on data quality
Conduct a sprint hosted by the ONS May 13-15. So far, it would be attended by 11 participants from 8 organisations in 7 countries. Facilities for others to connect and participate will be arranged. The ONS has submitted a paper to provide an overview of the ML project and the outcome of the sprint to the ModernStats workshop.

Risks and Issues

Issue	Mitigation

News from the Groups
Blue-skies Thinking	Identifying Topics/Opportunities	IN PROGRESS	The BSTN Group will meet 26 April and continue discussion the first 14 topics identified so far. Planned to be ready for discussion in the May Executive Board meeting.
Blue-skies Thinking	Follow-up selected topics	IN PROGRESS	Follow-up actions have been identified for three topics so far. Follow-up will start after discussion/selection in the Executive Board
Developing Organisational Capability	Skills and Capability Framework	IN PROGRESS	We are planning to start with identifying complementary skills. The top level of the GAMSO framework could be used as a starting point for the work.
	Promotion Forum	IN PROGRESS	We need to update public wiki site of our Group regularly, and looking forward to getting proposals on fresh blog posts. We also need feedback on: what will draw you to this wiki site? and what you find the most useful? We can also consider to share national news on the blog and to add Discussion Forum, if useful. We will advertise public wiki page during the various UNECE Workshops, All Group members are also encouraged to share link to the wiki page with their colleagues. We are planning to prepare some handout about the work/outputs of our group for the CES session this June, maybe presentation at the CES with promotional video (it should be checked). In near future our promotional material should be interactive, short, sharp and action focused. We need to focus on the benefits we add to the NSO's, and demonstrate the value of the outputs to the higher degree.
	Setting vision in NSOs	IN PROGRESS	We are planning to start work with the short questionnaire on how to define the best vision for NSO's. We need more people interested to contribute to the work on Setting Vision in NSO's.
	Other	We are under the process of forming Organising Committee of the workshop on Culture Evolution. Andrew Mann from ABS agreed to be a chair of the Workshop. All members of this Group are asked to volunteer to be co-organisers of one of the proposed sessions of the Workshop, and when OC is formed, we will schedule separate, more frequent, calls to prepare this Workshop. It is proposed to have 2 co-organisers for every session.
Supporting Standards	Linking GSBPM and GSIM	IN PROGRESS	The task team, jointly chaired by Istat and Statistics Canada, had started its work. A template has been agreed to map GSIM information objects to GSBPM sub-processes as well as to provide concrete examples. Two GSBPM sub-processes have been mapped by Stats Canada and Istat. The Group has volountereed to produce the mapping for a few sub-processes to be discussed at next meeting. The task team is meeting every three weeks.
	Core Ontology	IN PROGRESS	The task team chaired by France is meeting regularly. The issues found in terminology have been reported in a common wiki page. The group plans to finish the document for public review before November HLG meeting and to extend phase 2 into 2020 to incorporate the public review results
	Alignment GSBPM and GAMSO	IN PROGRESS	The task team, chaired by Mexico, had started its work. Agreement was reached on the OPs of GSBPM to consider and that need further explanations. The different role in GSBPM and GAMSO of common OPs will be clarified and examples will be provided. Mexico prepared a paper summarising the work to be done. The task team is meeting every four weeks.
	Metadata Glossary	IN PROGRESS	The group is meeting regularly. A meeting with chairs of task teams might be organised to discuss common terminology problems encountered across the models
	Other	The Group is contributing to organising the ModernStat World Workshop next June
Sharing Tools	Digitizing/editing CSPA document	IN PROGRESS
	Adding Services to Catalogue	IN PROGRESS	The new Features concept have been mapped to the catalogue. A proposal will be made of required modifications to the catalogue.
	Communication restated CSPA	NOT STARTED
	Other