Visioning a Nationwide Infrastructure for Community Statistics Community Statistical Systems Network    (1B5)

Participant Profile    (1B6)

Name(s): Roderick J. Harrison    (1B7)

Organization: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies    (1B8)

Title or Subject of Initiative, Project, Program, or Other Effort Relevant to Meeting: An effort to develop DataBank – A Tool to Deliver Community Statistical Systems based on the Census Bureau’s DataFerrett    (1B9)

Nature of Effort:    (1BA)

_X_ system for on-line delivery of nationwide local area data to individual users _X__ tabular data ___ mapped data presentations geographic units (e.g., states, counties, places) include: all and lowest geographies available in public use files primary data sets include: decenniel census, economic census, County and Zip-Code Business Patterns, the Common Core of Data (NCES data on all primary and secondary schools), CDC natality and mortality (county), __X_ tool to assist national and local data intermediaries in accessing and organizing data sets for inclusion in on-line statistical systems PRINCIPALLY HOT REPORTS    (1BB)

___ development of applications, technologies, or standards to aid in the above DITTO    (1BC)

___ other:    (1BD)

Current Status: ___ in operation _X_ under construction ___ in planning, in conceptual development, under consideration    (1BE)

URL (if relevant): http://www.jointcenter.org/DB/index.htm is our current site, a compilation of static tabulations published by a wide spectrum of federal agencies, aiming to provide “one-stop shopping” for statistics on African Americans and other racial/ethnic populations    (1BF)

Purpose and Audience (Ends): Policy makers, elected officials, academics, media, etc interested in trends, differentials, etc. for racial and ethnic minorities.    (1BG)

Brief Description (Means): Currently just static compilations of links to published tables. Working on building a library of DataFerrett HotReports to provide interactive web access to data on neighborhoods, communities and localities.    (1BH)

Brief Narrative of History, Current Status, Plans:    (1BI)

The current static website is not unrelated to a concept that President Clinton’s Initiative on Race once contemplated of developing a comprehensive “Report Card” comprised of indicators on racial differentials and trends. Federal agencies were unwilling or unable to commit the resources towards going beyond the Initiatives primer “Changing America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being by Race and Hispanic Origin”. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies independently developed a similar concept (DataBank) and I moved from the Census Bureau (where I had once been Chief of the Racial Statistics Branch) to develop the project. As noted, current efforts, funded to date by the Ford and Kellogg Foundations, are focused on moving from static compilations of national indicators to interactive access to federal statistics on communities and localities.    (1BJ)

Relevant Background Documents (with URLs, if available): None currently available, but I can share sketches and outlines from grant proposals if you contact me.    (1BK)

Contact information: Address: 1090 Vermont Ave, Suite 1100    (1BL)

                Washington, DC 20005    (1BM)

Telephone: 202 789-3514 E-mail: rharrison@jointcenter.org    (1BN)