Updates from the HLG-MOS Projects

Generative AI

  • Kick-off meeting to be held on 21st Feb. 
  • Participants from Australia, Azerbaijan, Canada, France (Bank), Ireland, Italy, Italy (Bank), Sweden, Switzerland, UK, BIS and OECD
  • Relevant actions for coordination 
    • Discussion with One-Stop-Shop LLM lead (Sweden) 
    • OECD-BIS SDMX-AI workshop
    • Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi (SCAD)
    • CES Plenary seminar on AI to be held in June (co-lead: Germany and Canada)

Statistical Open-Source

  • Kick-off meeting to be held on 4th March
  • Organizations signed up: Australia, Canada (Infrastructure), Italy, New Zealand, UK and OECD

Updates from the Modernization Groups

Blue-skies Thinking


Identifying Topics/Opportunities

CONTINIOUS

  • We reviewed the methods of working for the group, and agreed to keep the regular brainstorming sessions, given their value in generating ideas and getting a sense of interest in such.
  • The possible existence of an AI bubble was raised at the last call, which could be explored in some capacity under HLG-MOS. 
  • ONS is interested in doing an activity on the "Future of NSIs", which would involve writing a white paper on predictions, challenges, and opportunities upcoming for NSIs.
    A meeting will be held on the 26th of February to determine the structure and possible contents of the paper.

  • Several pitches were made last year regarding data collection (e.g. Smart Surveys from CBS, Removing Barriers from ISTAT). Given the up coming Expert Meeting on Statistical Data Collection, there could be opportunities for collaboration with the steering committee and the pitchers.
Digital Twins

IN PROGRESS

No significant update since that given in September 2023.

The team has been setting up a similar proof of concept for the approach of using simulation to model field activity and inform design decisions, however this doesn't involve any real time feedback loops (i.e. it is not a digital twin). 

Applying Data Science and Modern Methods


  • 2023 cycle: The Data Editing Task Team's deliverable paper is published. The Modeling and Responsible AI Task Teams are in their final stages with their deliverables and are soon to be published as well.
  • 2024 cycle: We have 23 unique participants signed up, mostly for 2 task teams: a) Advancing Responsible AI in Statistical Offices: Bridging Knowledge and Practice and b) Beyond Point Predictions: Ensuring Reliability in Official Statistics through Uncertainty Quantification.

The third task team, "Business Case for Graph Modeling and Graph Databases Support across the Granular Data Lifecycle," has not gathered interest as there are only a few people signed up, and it is considered not to proceed. We are scheduling kickoff meetings for the 2 task teams and will perform scoping to identify concrete deliverables. 

Capabilities and Communication


Work and Job of the Future - Extended work on Generic Growth Model

IN PROGRESS

Three sub-teams met separately, and had productive discussion in their respective areas. Work on the Generic Growth Model for complex organizational themes proposal will be carried on by the main Future of work task team. As agreed earlier, together with other surveys of this team, we will send request to the countries to share with us experiences with growth model and examples. 

We will work on preparing letter that should be sent to the countries to provide examples/experiences of using growth model. 

It was also proposed that each of the sub-teams will prepare examples of how their work fits in the generic growth model.

Data Analytics

IN PROGRESS

We had good first meeting of this sub-team with colleagues from Infrastructure Canada and Statistics Canada leading the discussion. Colleagues from Statistics Canada promised to share their internal documents related to data analytics, and to organize show and tell presentation in the coming months. They will also invite colleagues from ONS UK, ABS and Statistics New Zealand to join this team, as they are collaborating with them on the same topic. Team will be working on the paper exploring the advantages of using data analytics and how NSOs can embark on this journey.

It was suggested that we should try to plot data analytics journey in the Generic Growth Model.

Evaluation of blended (hybrid working)

IN PROGRESS

This sub-team agreed that they will start sharing materials relevant to this topic, Cathy already shared some useful ABS documents. Afterwards sub team will work on the questions for the survey. It was agreed that survey should go out to the countries at the end of May/beginning of June, so there is enough time to collect responses and analyze results to be able to present them at the Workshop on HRMT in October 2024.

Employer branding

IN PROGRESS

This sub-team also had productive meeting and considering to prepare a paper and a survey that will be sent to the countries. It was  prepared an outline of the work of this sub team that was circulated to everyone by e-mail and will be discussed during the next meeting on 14 March. In the meanwhile they will also be gathering documents related to employer branding.  We will also attempt to map this work to Generic Growth Model.

The plan is to present output of this sub-team at the HRMT workshop in October and Modernization Workshop in November.

Ethical management (Data and Business)

IN PROGRESS

The team had a meeting. We can observe progress on the Reference book on ethics: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CzfMZuTOERZm4DqGHB4-h_Km_TTyuEDuofsqL6oMb9M/edit?usp=sharing 

Ethics Workshop 2024 (26-28 March 2024)

IN PROGRESS

The work is on the track. We are finalising agenda and analysing received contributions.

Workshop on HRMT OC

IN PROGRESS

First meeting will be organized by the end of February.

AI for official statistics - communication perspective

IN PROGRESS

The group met and had a round table discussion on topics participants wish to work on and outputs (all)

  • Providing examples and case studies demonstrating the use of AI and LLM tools for communication purposes in official statistics would be beneficial for both team members and the wider statistical community.
  • LLMs could introduce inaccuracies and biases in public discourse, National Statistical Offices (NSOs) should dedicate efforts to continuously increase the statistical literacy of their users.
  • AI has the potential to support communication objectives through automated and faster visualization, text editing, and maintenance tools.
  • Are there any standardized prompts or repositories available? Writing a prompt as a statistics communicator persona may yield different results compared to when a simple user makes the same request.
  • Utilizing AI for audience segmentation and message targeting, for message creation and insights derived from user interactions, user and media monitoring, and sentiment analysis.
  • Are there existing policies or guidance on the use of AI tools, taking into consideration accuracy and confidentiality issues?
  • Incorporating a "show and tell" component in each meeting where someone presents an example or case study.
  • The task team is a safe space, where participants can present any cases, challenges and involve in discussions.

ACTION POINT: provide an example of AI application for communication in our organisations, focusing on the things that worked well, and those that didn’t (!).  

Supporting Standards

 



To date (as of 19th Feb), the Supporting Standards Group can report the following:

  • The work on version 2.0 of GSIM was presented to the CES bureau, which endorsed its presentation to the CES plenary session in June.
  • For the ModernStats World workshop, the group has defined the scope of the topics to be discussed.
  • Arrangements are being made for a side-meeting to the smart metadata conference in April: This includes discussions about how to scope and structure those discussions (on the complementarity of SDMX and DDI, and the role of transformation languages like VTL and SDTL).
  • We are seeking a leader for the activity on Common Statistical Data Architecture (CSDA). – Suggestions are welcome!
  • Work is being undertaken to finalise the work of the activity on linking GSBPM to SDMX and DDI.
  • Work on the revision of GSBPM is continuing as planned. (There are 2 phases left to consider comments about, then GAMSO comments will be reviewed.)




Updates from the HLG-MOS Projects

Generative AI

  • During its first plenary meeting in February, the project AI agreed to create several subtask teams to span across six use cases (co-pilot assistants, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Information extraction, Generation and editing of metadata, dissemination using AI and communication) and four aspects (project management and development journey; prompt engineering; architecture, systems and applications stack; governance, compliance and ethics)
  • Six sub-task teams kicked off their work in March and April to collect use cases across the members, define the agenda and clarify organizational aspects
  • In order better promote knowledge-sharing, chairs proposed to consolidate the sub-task teams into two bigger task teams, focusing the workplan respectively on technical aspects (prompt sharing, architecture, systems and applications stack) and project management (including governance, risks and ethical aspects)
  • The project is also setting up its collaboration space to gather resources, minutes and other useful resources for the members

The next steps will include the discussion of use cases by members and external presenters.

Statistical Open-Source

  • Inserted Project Manager Carlo Vaccari (April)
  • Added new countries: Netherlands, Ireland, Eurostat, Serbia, USA (Postman), Italy (CREA)
  • Meeting on April 17th: decided organizational stuff (periodicity, sub-teams), analyzed priorities, started discussion on "Awesome list" 
  • Two sub-teams defined:
    • Governance: maintenance, licensing, open source culture, ...
    • Repository: existing repositories, tools choice, recommendations
  • Proposal for joint work with the "Generative AI" project on open tools and open training data

Updates from the Modernization Groups

Blue-skies Thinking




Identifying Topics/Opportunities

CONTINIOUS

Topics that have been discussed during BSTN this year have included the following:

  • Quantum Computing (QC):
    • The discussion primarily revolved around threats that QC may pose to society at large and NSOs due to the potential power of QC to break current encryption methods.
    • The potential for QC to completely disrupt the internet and the sharing of data was noted.
    • The arrival of the QC age could occur within a matter of years.
  • Data Spaces:
    • These are platforms which use cloud infrastructure to share data between data providers and the potential users of their data.
    • Opportunities were noted, such as easier data sharing.
    • Concerns were noted, such as the potential rise of monopolies, and whether the administrators of such spaces are taking into account data interoperability and other issues.
Future of NSIs


  • Several meetings have occurred, including an in person meeting in NY
  • A Strategic Paper will be produced, which will cover the following topics:
    • The history and role of NSOs
    • External challenges such as the data landscape, and structural changes
    • Data stewardship
    • Forecasting the future of NSIs
    • Standards, transparency and trust
  • A statswiki space has been established, and a Google Doc created so that work can begin on the paper.
Digital Twins

IN PROGRESS

No update at the current time.

Applying Data Science and Modern Methods





General Overview

IN PROGRESS

The ADSaMM work-stream has two task teams underway, and both are making good progress and a high level of participation / engagement. Consideration is being given to establishing a third task team.

A 3rd task team is being considered as a consequence of a suggestion from Osama Rahman (UK Data Science Campus) around the practical implementation of data science techniques in official statistics. Following 2 or 3 rounds of meetings, the group of interested NSO are focussed on three Use Cases: PETs, EO / mobile data / Geospatial and Nowcasting. Stats Japan have offered to host a workshop in October on the agreed topic.

Task Team #1: Uncertainty Quantification

IN PROGRESS

The Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) task team are underway and I can report that:

  • The team have met twice, comprises 27 participants, and led by Mohammed Haddou from Statistics Canada.
  • At the kick-off meeting (February), following general introductions etc., the team agreed the scope, deliverables and outline of a work plan. The group also formed smaller groups to tackle subtasks & chapters. In addition, following a task team member’s suggestion the group decided to begin by reviewing and discussing a particular paper on conformal prediction (CP) while simultaneously progressing with our tasks and deliverables.
  • At the team’s second meeting (April), Mohammed gave a presentation on CP, which sparked productive discussions, including the potential application of uncertainty quantification in official statistics.
  • At the forthcoming (May) meetings Mohammed will complete his CP presentation, and Siu-Ming Tam will present a bootstrap method he developed for quantifying uncertainty.
  • The task team is exploring the establishment of a Teams channel to enhance their communication and collaboration.

Task Team #2: Advancing Responsible AI.

IN PROGRESS

The Advancing Responsible AI task team is also underway and I can report that:

  • The team have met twice, comprises 13 participants, and led by Riitta Piela from Statistics Finland.
  • Similar to UQ task team, the team have got into their work with establishing a work program, identified work packages and subtasks that various team members can work on.
  • At forthcoming meetings, various team members will present some ideation thoughts.
  • The task team is also keen to identify a suitable platform so the task team can communicate & collaborate.

Capabilities and Communication


Work and Job of the Future - Extended work on Generic Growth Model

IN PROGRESS

All Task Teams have regular monthly meetings.

Message to the countries to request wider distribution/use of the Generic Growth Model will be sent to the countries together with the surveys prepared by it's sub-teams (employer branding and evaluation of blended working).

Data Analytics

IN PROGRESS

Team had a couple of successful meetings, and prepared presentation detailing Statistics Canada's journey with respect to maturing their HR business intelligence/people analytics function. The plan is to prepare a paper on how to help countries to start on HR business intelligence journey, and lessons learned. 

Evaluation of blended (hybrid working)

IN PROGRESS

Survey on the evaluation of blended working is on the final stages of revision. We plan to send survey to the countries in May.

Employer branding

IN PROGRESS

Task Team prepared draft survey on employer branding, that is under review now. We plan to send survey to the countries in May.

Ethical management (Data and Business)

IN PROGRESS

Work on the Reference Book is progressing. After the Workshop on Ethics four new members joined the Task Team, and we finally have confirmed co-chair of the Task Team (Martin Beaulieu from Statistics Canada)

Ethics Workshop 2024 (26-28 March 2024)

IN PROGRESS

Workshop on Ethics went exceptionally well, and we received 100% positive feedback from the participants. On the last day of the Workshop, discussion focused on the preparation of the Reference Book on Ethics, and we received valuable input form the participants. There is interest from various countries in the reference book and future workshops in this area. Suggestions for future work include: increasing staff engagement in changing organizational culture, social acceptability, statistical data science and responsible AI, ethics and new data sources, ethics in institutional context and ethics in the context of data stewardship.

Workshop on HRMT OC

IN PROGRESS

Information Notice 1 is prepared and circulated to the team members for  their review. Invitation will be sent to the countries at the beginning of May.

AI for official statistics - communication perspective

IN PROGRESS

The task team has regular monthly meetings sharing use cases and needs and challenges. 

    • An interesting aspect of the cases we discuss could be any ethical guidelines on HOW to use AI in the daily work and HOW to COMMUNCATE that we have used AI for a press release, monthly report, social media, etc?
    • Some potential solutions could come with the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) EU. At the moment, this is still in the drafting phase: EUR-Lex - 52021PC0206 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu).
    • Researching and presenting if such exist, could be a component part of the cases when presented.
    • Generating images through AI can be challenging, both, from the perspective of writing descriptive prompts and specific requests but also from the perspective of getting the desired images: style, color scheme, organisation templates, etc.
    • BIS, BPS Indonesia, UNECE and Eurostat showcased the practical solutions on writing requests and generating text and images using various tools/combinations (ChatGPT, Adobe Firefly, Monika, Playground, etc.). The presentations will be made available on the  wiki.
    • Different platforms/versions of tools offer different design solutions and products, but also different services as referring to intellectual property and legal coverage/commitment services. Choosing one or another depends on the organisation policy, needs and requirements.
    • The European Commission provides guidelines for using AI under specific conditions, emphasizing caution with words and prompts advising to avoid using personal information and exact location/dates.
    • Elements like text, flags, and dates in AI images (which might be generated in an weird way) can be addressed by asking in the prompts to leave space for customization, and later adding the logos or text according to organizational templates.

Next meeting participants will discuss on the expected output, continuing to share case studies


Supporting Standards

 

CES endorsement of GSIM 2.0


Following discussion of GSIM 2.0 at the CES Bureau meeting in February, a paper for discussion at the CES plenary session (in June) has been drafted.

ModernStats World Workshop


The organization of the ModernStats Word Workshop in October is moving forward. The call for abstracts and information note has been published here. The workshop is going to focus on the use of standards and tools to improve interoperability, transparency and metadata-driven pipelines with the aim at sketching the future of statistical production beyond 2025.

Conference on Smart Metadata for Official Statistics (Paris, 11-12 April)


UNECE contributed to the COSMOS conference on 11-12 April, related to smart metadata. UNECE presented a poster, with InKyung being part of its scientific committee. The topics discussed provide a useful basis for further consideration at the ModernStats World Workshop

There was also a useful meeting on April 10th in Paris right before COSMOS. The morning discussion was focused on ways in which SDMX and DDI are complimentary with each other, and the afternoon was dedicated to learn about transformation and validations languages (VTL/SDTL/SDTH) and how they can be used in the context of automated pipelines. As well as exchanging insights about new developments (SDTL/SDTH and VTL-DDI interoperability), it was a good opportunity for DDI and SDMX experts to share ideas on this topic. There was an agreement to draft a brief note suggesting a favoured approach to take to address interoperability of SDMX and DDI.

Revision of GSBPM and GAMSO activity


Work on the revision of GSBPM is continuing as planned, currently examining feedback received on the Design phase of GSBPM.

SDMX-DDI-GSBPM activity


Work on finalizing the SDMX-DDI-GSBPM report is close to completion, but is proceeding more slowly than anticipated.

Common Statistical Data Architecture


We are still seeking a leader for the activity on Common Statistical Data Architecture (CSDA) – Suggestions are appreciated!

Core Ontology for Official Statistics


This work is not due to start until summer 2024.

65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025


We submitted a proposal to the 65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025 in The Hague. The proposed session will discuss how implementation standards can be used together with conceptual ModernStats models to improve interoperability at technical, semantic and organizational levels, and how they can be leveraged to build statistical production pipelines that are metadata-driven, semantically consistent and reusable.




Updates from the HLG-MOS Projects

Generative AI

During May and June 2024, the Generative AI Project held two plenaries as well as its regular task team meetings. More specifically, the plenary in May focused on the ongoing work by OECD.AI on the development of generative AI across the wide spectrum of policy activities. The meeting emphasized the importance of robust AI governance and policy frameworks and the OECD AI Policy Observatory's role in monitoring AI developments. It also addressed the importance of trustworthy AI. In this context, there were several discussions among the members on the role of NSOs to the OECD’s AI catalog, a possible AI Risk management framework tailored to official statistics, as well as further collaboration opportunities with the OECD in this space. The Swiss Statistical Office presented the SwissBot to the project in the second plenary (June). Finally, as regards the task teams, work is ongoing to develop the outline of the final report as well as to ensure comprehensive coverage for the drafting.

Open-Source Software Project

The Open-Source Software Project (OSSP) has been conducting regular sub-team and plenary meetings. The two sub-teams are two sub-groups are "Governance and Maintenance" (chair Kate Burnett-Isaacs) and "Repositories and Discoverability". Presentations and discussions have occurred concerning the Awesome List for Official Statistics, as well as Open-Source Licenses. 

Drafting work has begun on the Project Report.

Plans are in place to organize a sprint in September (date TBD).

Updates from the Modernization Groups

Blue-skies Thinking




Identifying Topics/Opportunities

CONTINIOUS

At the April call (occurring after the last EB update) Eric Anvar gave a presentation on the concept of "Data Mesh", which involves the domain-orientated decentralization for analytical data i.e., instead of having analysis of data occurring at a central point with one team, the analysis processes are pushed upstream to local teams with domain expertise. The group discussed options for exploration of the Data Mesh concept under the work of the HLG-MOS.

The May meeting discussed the process of pitching ideas at the dedicated mid-year BSTN session for such. The mid-year session is a time dedicated to hearing ideas that pitches believe may be worth turning into a project or activity.
The group agreed to continue with existing practices (now documented on the wiki) i.e., members of modernisation teams are given the chance to present ideas at the BSTN mid-year pitching session, and feedback is provided by the group.


The June BSTN call will hear pitches for projects/activites at the June call.

Pitches so far include:

  • Data Integration
  • AI Governance at NSOs
Future of NSIs

IN PROGRESS

Three out of five of the chapter workshops have been completed on the Strategic Papers sections. So far Vision, History and Role, and External Challenges have been discussed. The working team is aiming for a deadline of 15 August for the chapter groups to produce their first drafts.

Applying Data Science and Modern Methods





General Overview

IN PROGRESS

Overall, the two established Task Teams are progressing well, and we have been looking at developing a couple of Applied Data Science Collaboration proposals.

 In terms of the Applied Data Science Collaboration proposals, we have a number of countries interested in developing proposals for three areas – PETs, Nowcasting and EO / mobile data / Geospatial. We are currently considering how to best put forward these proposals for consideration for inclusion in the ADSaMM Group’s programme (either 2024 or 2025).

We are also exploring a proposal from Statistics Bureau of Japan to host an in person meeting in Tokyo in October. The aim is to begin work on these as part of the ADSaMM programme in September. If any other HLG MOS members are interested in taking part please contact alison.baily@ons.gov.uk and jo.green@statistics.gov.uk for more information

Task Team #1: Uncertainty Quantification

IN PROGRESS

The Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) Task Team have held 3 meetings since the last update. Here are some of the highlights:

  1. Task Team Meetings and Presentations
    • 2024-05-07: Mohammed completed part 2 of his presentation on Conformal Prediction.
    • 2024-05-21: Siu-Ming presented on “Uncertainty quantification for machine-generated (MLg) statistics using the bootstrap.”
    • 2024-06-04: We started a Google document. We discussed work scope, timelines, deliverables, the creation of a communication channel (Teams or other) and assigned subgroup tasks.
  1. Subgroups Meetings (past and upcoming)
    • 2024-06-03: The "Traditional Methods" subgroup met to plan work, discuss scope, timelines, and deliverables.
    • 2024-06-21: The "Conformal Prediction" subgroup will meet to discuss the literature review and next steps.
    • 2024-06-24: The "Traditional Methods" subgroup will meet to review completed tasks, provide updates, and discuss next steps.


Task Team #2: Advancing Responsible AI.

IN PROGRESS

In the Responsible AI Task Team, the following progress has been made:

  1. Responsible persons were and will be assigned for each module, with deadlines set to ensure timely completion. The modules will be structured into specific, practical blocks tailored to executives, statisticians and data scientists and will include a compliance checklist and a standard template for use cases. Both predictive and generative AI will be covered, addressing their distinct implications and challenges.
  2. Legal expertise will be needed to understand the implications of the EU AI Act and other international frameworks, involving lawyers from NSIs.
  3. Various training methods identified: webinars, workshops and online platforms. It was also agreed to prepare webinars as training modules, with recordings available on the UN training platform. Additionally, there are plans for an in-person workshop during the HLG MOS annual meeting in November in Geneva.
  4. Responsibilities for modules are confirmed (unfortunately still some names missing), with drafts to be completed by August, reviews finalized by September and preparations made for a November workshop, alongside a series of webinars and workshops, including that already mentioned in-person session at the HLG MOS annual meeting. Deadlines for each module should be set in June (there is an online table where each person responsible for a module should enter their deadlines).


Capabilities and Communication


Work and Job of the Future - Extended work on Generic Growth Model

IN PROGRESS

All Task Teams have regular monthly meetings.

Message to the countries to request wider distribution/use of the Generic Growth Model was sent to the countries at the end of May together with the surveys prepared by it's sub-teams (employer branding and evaluation of blended working). Deadline for responses is 30 June. 

Data Analytics

IN PROGRESS

Team had a couple of successful meetings, and prepared structure of the paper on "Enhancing National Statistical Offices through HR Analytics. Key Considerations and Benefits".

 The plan is to prepare first draft of the paper for the Expert Meeting on HRMT on 14-16 October.

Evaluation of blended (hybrid working)

IN PROGRESS

Survey on the evaluation of blended working was sent to the countries at the end of May. Deadline for responses is 30 June.

Employer branding

IN PROGRESS

Survey on employer branding was sent to the countries at the end of May. Deadline for responses is 30 June.

Ethical management (Data and Business)

IN PROGRESS

Work on the Reference Book is progressing, and the main structure has been agreed upon. Many new team members joined this team after the Workshop on Ethics.

Team is planning to have a draft of the Reference Book ready by the end of this year, and will report on the progress during the HRMT meeting in October.

Ethics Workshop 2024 (26-28 March 2024)

COMPLETED

Workshop report was published on the website: https://unece.org/statistics/events/Ethics2024

Workshop on HRMT OC

IN PROGRESS

Invitation was sent to the countries on 15 May, with the deadline for submitting abstracts at the end of June. Deadline for registrations is 16 September: https://unece.org/statistics/events/HRMT2024

The programme of the meeting will cover the following topics:
• ‘Employer of Choice’ brand development
• Training/learning and development
• Integration, inclusion and ethics
• Evaluation of blended/hybrid working and data analytics

Team will meet at the beginning of July to review submitted contributions and to decide on the meeting timetable.

AI for official statistics - communication perspective

IN PROGRESS

Continuing to gather and showcase country experiences, working on populating the "AI for communicating official statistics" guidelines


Supporting Standards

 

CES endorsement of GSIM 2.0

COMPLETED

We received endorsement of version 2.0 of GSIM from the Conference of European Statisticians

ModernStats World Workshop

IN PROGRESS

  • The abstracts for the ModernStats Word Workshop in October are published on our webpage, and we are seeking registrations: https://unece.org/statistics/events/MWW2024
  • This year’s workshop may be an opportunity to take a strategic look at where we are with our work on standards, and how we wish to focus our attentions in the future, corresponding to the session on what statistical production should look like in 2025 and beyond, which might also have a groupwork element, in addition to presentations/panel discussion (we are still formulating the timetable).
  • While this workshop can help determine the longer-term direction of our work, there is only a short period of time between this workshop and the HLG workshop, so it cannot be the place where 2025 activity proposals are conceived.
  • For this reason, the process for discussing 2025 activity proposals has already started, though previous workshop participants were also invited to suggest ideas.

Consideration of the interplay between AI and standards

IN PROGRESS

We group has had several discussions on this topic, and is seeking collaboration with AI developers to find concrete examples how AI and standards may be relevant to each other, whether standards (especially relating to semantics) can help AI to interpret data and make generated results more explainable, and also whether AI could be helpful in the development of standards and statistical production.

Revision of GSBPM and GAMSO activity

IN PROGRESS

  • Work on the revision of GSBPM is continuing as planned, currently examining feedback received on the Design phase of GSBPM.
  • We have found that our initial suggestion about renaming phase 4 of GSBPM from “collect” to “acquire” has been confusing to speakers of latin-influenced languages, for whom the word acquire has connotations of purchasing/procurement of data.

SDMX-DDI-GSBPM activity

IN PROGRESS

Work on finalizing the SDMX-DDI-GSBPM report is close to completion, but recently slowed down, so renewed efforts have been made to finalise the document.

Common Statistical Data Architecture

IN PROGRESS

We had previously concluded that the CSDA activity would need to be pushed back to next year due to the lack of a leader for this activity. However, we may have found a volunteer to lead the work on CSDA, and will reach out to discuss their plans and timelines for this work. This should enable the activity to commence this year.

Core Ontology for Official Statistics


It has been decided not to start this work until the GSBPM revision is finalised (next year).

65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025

IN PROGRESS

The proposal we submitted to the 65th ISI World Statistics Congress 2025 in The Hague has been accepted. The proposed session will discuss how implementation standards can be used together with conceptual ModernStats models to improve interoperability at technical, semantic and organizational levels, and how they can be leveraged to build statistical production pipelines that are metadata-driven, semantically consistent and reusable.




Updates from the HLG-MOS Projects

Generative AI

Dublin Sprint, scheduled for September 25-27, at the CSO Central Statistics Office. This event has garnered attention from various sectors, including colleagues from the OECD who have expressed plans to attend. Additionally, we are arranging presentations by domain experts on the governance of GenAI, focusing on providing practical insights into its application. Further information on the agenda and speakers will be shared as it becomes available. A presentation on the work has also been delivered at the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics on August 22.

Open-Source Software Project

The Open-Source Software Project (OSSP) has been conducting sub-team and plenary meetings. The two sub-teams are two sub-groups are "Governance and Maintenance" (chair Kate Burnett-Isaacs) and "Repositories and Discoverability".

Drafting work is continuing on the Project Report. Documents and links can be found in the Project homepage.

The Sprint meeting will be held on September 18-20 in Belgrade, hosted by local NSO SORS.

Updates from the Modernization Groups

Blue-skies Thinking




Identifying Topics/Opportunities

CONTINIOUS

  • Data Integration Sprint
    • The BSTN group has been arranging a sprint on the topic of Data Integration (see: proposal paper). The sprint will take place in the form of two 3hr online meetings, on Sept 9th and 17th.
    • Planning of the meetings has begun, and is almost completed for the 1st meeting. The 2nd meeting timetable will be finalised after the 2nd meeting. 
    • The 1st meeting will focus on background and analysis of established work and practices. The 2nd meeting will narrow discussions with mind to determine possible work avenues for 2025.
  • The June BSTN meeting heard a pitch on AI Governance at NSO from Marie Haldorson, and the group discussed the topic of Data Integration.
  • The July BSTN meeting heard an update on the Future of NSIs exercise, and further discussed the Data Integration sprint proposal. The group then discussed recent news concerning security risks, and suggested an activity could be created for a series of presentation on common risks for NSOs.
  • The August BSTN meeting will hear a pitch from Jeremy Visschers and Luca Mancini on Trust and the Public, and Jon Wylie will provide an update on Work Package 1 of the ModernStats Carpentries project (i.e. the development of OS lessons for statisticians).
Future of NSIs

IN PROGRESS

Al chapter workshops have been completed, and all section drafts were submitted to the General Editors for review.

The General Editors meeting in August reviewed the drafts and will provide comments to the editors of the sections. 

Osama will summarise the key points of the section drafts in a single document and provide such in a few weeks time.

Andrew is creating a single document to combine the section drafts.

The event in Japan will not go ahead, otherwise plans remain unchanged.

Applying Data Science and Modern Methods





General Overview

IN PROGRESS

Good progress has been made by the 2 Task Teams. Last Report I reported the potential for a HLG-MOS meeting in Japan - unfortunately, due to various challenges this meeting will not proceed (yet).

We have unfortunately paused work on the Applied Data Science Collaboration initiative due to current resource pressures in several NSOs. We hope to be able to pick it up again in the next financial year. We will keep the three short-listed topics (PETs – EO/Mobile Data/Geospatial – Nowcasting) on the priority list for when we’re able to restart.

Task Team #1: Uncertainty Quantification

IN PROGRESS

The project team have held a few meetings since the last update, although they skipped the monthly task team meeting in August.

Here are some of the highlights:

Task Team Meetings and Presentations

  • 2024-07-02: Mohammed gave a presentation on Prediction-Powered Inference (PPI).
    • Title: Prediction-Powered Inference: A Review of the Original Paper and Recent Key Papers.
    • Overview: PPI is a framework for performing valid statistical inference when an experimental dataset is supplemented with predictions from a machine learning system.

Subgroup Meetings

  • 2024-06-21: The "Conformal Prediction" subgroup met to discuss the literature review and next steps.
  • 2024-06-24: The "Traditional Methods" subgroup met to review completed tasks, provide updates, and discuss next steps.

Task Team #2: Advancing Responsible AI.

IN PROGRESS

The project has been divided into 9 modules, each with designated responsible persons. Work is being advanced independently within each module. Over the summer, substantial content has already been developed for almost every module. The plan for the summer also included identifying the target group or groups to whom each module will be specifically directed. Additionally, the aim was to consider what methods each module will use to ensure that the content is easily understood by the target groups. The next joint meeting is scheduled for September 12th, where the progress of each individual group will be reviewed.

The deadline for all modules (except for the regulatory framework module) is the end of August, by which time a draft of the content must be ready. Similarly, a draft of the methods to be used should also be prepared. In the next phase, in addition to the methods, the time each module will need to advance its topic should also be determined. There should also be a preliminary designation of the individuals who will be responsible for practically implementing the modules.

Capabilities and Communication


Work and Job of the Future - Extended work on Generic Growth Model

IN PROGRESS

A message requesting wider distribution and use of the Generic Growth Model was sent to countries at the end of May together with the surveys. We have received responses from a few countries confirming that they will distribute the models in their offices, but no comments on the model were provided.

Data Analytics

IN PROGRESS

Task Team is working on paper on data analyses in HR. It should be ready and presented during HRMT workshop and HLG MOS workshop.

Evaluation of blended (hybrid working)

IN PROGRESS

Task Team (TT) is working on analysing answers from survey. TT is also working on paper which will be presented during HRMT workshop and HLG MOS workshop.

Employer branding

IN PROGRESS

Task Team (TT) is working on analysing answers from survey. TT is also working on paper which will be presented during HRMT workshop and HLG MOS workshop.

Ethical management (Data and Business)

IN PROGRESS

Task Team is working on Reference Book on Ethics making necessary revisions to 6 chapters.

Ethics Workshop 2024 (26-28 March 2024)

COMPLETED


Workshop on HRMT OC

IN PROGRESS

Task Team is working on agenda and contributions.

AI for official statistics - communication perspective

IN PROGRESS

Task Team is working on paper on AI for communication of official statistics.


Supporting Standards

 

Activity proposals for 2025

IN PROGRESS

A number of possible activity ideas were discussed, including:

  • AI and standards: There is a firm belief among SSG members that GenAI systems could benefit from the structuring of metadata and semantic context to facilitate their interpretation of data, noting Gartner's recent assertion that "at least 30% of GenAI projects will be abandoned after proof of concept due to [inter alia] poor data quality...". Such standards may also make GenAI results less of a black box. However, to make headway in establishing the interplay between standards and AI, case study examples are needed, for which we would need assistance from AI experts. This area will be discussed in upcoming SSG calls, and there'll be some AI-related presentations at the ModernStats World workshop, which should generate active debate there, though it's unclear whether this activity proposal will be solidified in time for a 2025 activity.
  • Contributing to the anticipated HLG project on Data Integration: The SSG has been asked by the CES to align its work to include Data Integration, and it has been suggested that the anticipated HLG project on Data Integration will task the SSG with making specific contributions, for example in relation to data architecture, etc.
  • CSPA for the Cloud: While the existing version of CSPA has not enjoyed widespread adoption due to technical implementation barriers, it has been suggested that recent developments in the cloud domain (Kubernetes, Docker, Onxyia, etc) might somewhat overcome these obstacles, while developments in use of open source may provide fresh impetus for looking at CSPA again (since sharing of code requires its modularization). Gary also mentioned CSPA in the last EB call. If SSG members are able to formulate a clear proposal, this will be submitted to the EB/HLG workshop.
  • GAMSO revision: To be rolled over from the currently active GSBPM/GAMSO revision activity, as GSBPM is nearing the end of its work, while the GAMSO revision is the next stage of that work to commence.
  • CSDA revision: This activity did not start in 2024 as an activity leader couldn’t be found (people were interested but busy). We intend to propose the same activity for 2025.

ModernStats World Workshop

IN PROGRESS

  • Unlike previous workshops, this year's one will not focus so much on introducing statisticians to ModernStats models, but rather to take a strategic view of the role that people see them playing in the broader modernisation effort, and how to steer our future direction, given recent developments, such as cloud and generative AI. This is reflected by the abstracts now available on the webpage:  https://unece.org/statistics/events/MWW2024
  • Given the short period of time between this workshop and the HLG workshop, it cannot be the place where 2025 activity proposals are conceived. (For this reason, the process for discussing 2025 activity proposals has already started.)
  • There will be a side-meeting after the workshop (exact topic tbd).

Revision of GSBPM and GAMSO activity

IN PROGRESS

  • Going backwards through GSBPM phases, we have nearly finished examining feedback received on phase 2 (Design phase), and after that need to consider the phase 1 (Specify Needs) and the overarching processes.
  • We are aiming to finalise GSBPM by the end of the year, but with 5 remaining calls before the end of the year, this is going to be tight.

SDMX-DDI-GSBPM activity

IN PROGRESS

Work as slowed down somewhat, but the output document is taking shape, and isn’t too far from completion. The next phase of work on GSIM in the context of DDI and SDMX will not start until the work on GSBPM is completed.

Common Statistical Data Architecture

ON HOLD

On hold until next year, for reasons previously mentioned (finding a chair)

Core Ontology for Official Statistics

ON HOLD

It has been decided not to start this work until the GSBPM revision is released (next year).







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