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and the 2011 Census API
Alan LewisSASPAC Project OfficerGreater London Authority
ONS Census 2011 Dissemination EventLondon, 16th May 2011
Overview
Background
2011 Census Preparations
FR3 Experience
2011 API Suggestions
Background
Software application to interrogate and access Census data
Owned by the Local Government Association
Managed/developed on behalf of LGA and users by the Greater London Authority (GLA)
“Not for Profit” - owned and managed by the Public Sector
Background
Users include: local, central and regional government, health sector, academia, Census Offices, private sector
Historically taken bulk release Census outputs from all three Census Offices, processed these and distributed to our users
Experience of the same problems as others: data specifications, formats, QA, updates/re-releases
Part of group that approached ONS in 2007 with data feed suggestion
2011 Census Preparations
Readying SASPAC for publication of 2011 Census data
Already had experience of NeSS Data Exchange (API) – Web Services Wizard
Partner working with ONS, NOMIS and Manchester University to help develop the 2011 Census API
began in early 2010 and an ‘alpha’ version made available to Partners in December (using 2001 test data)
2011 Census Preparations
Proof of Concept:
Aim: build a demonstration application that consumed the ONS API (FR3)
Java client within SASPAC that requests/parses data from Census and NDE API services
Integration with SASPAC’s existing tools and an initial exploration into OS API
Launch video
API’s RESTful construction via URIs was relatively straight forward to use
data delivery format (SDMX) is flexible and good for linking detailed metadata, although verbose and initial learning curve
(limited) functionality worked well and responsive
need to explore scalability
FR3 Experience
2011 API Suggestions
Some high level:
Data rich (datasets + geography + metadata)
Accessible (responsiveness + licensing)
Supported (documented, forums, sample clients/code)
Timely: ‘API should be just another channel’
2011 API Suggestions
Some specific:
“dimensional intelligence”e.g. having selected age/sex/ethnic group be able to query the geographical levels available
hierarchic support - both geographical and variable
rich item-level metadata e.g. variable description, table/cell ids, ref. to glossary and Census original question
geographical metadata (lookup files/pop centroids)
