There is no shortage of data, information and knowledge resources available on the Internet. In fact, the rate of growth of data and information has exploded in the past decade and it is estimated that 90% of the world’s data was generated in the last two years alone. According to the latest estimates, over 300 million terabytes of data are created each day!
The challenge for knowledge seekers therefore, is not availability or accessibility of information. Rather, it is discoverability, relevance and authenticity of knowledge and information that are the desirable attributes.
A Knowledge Broker
The eCISTAR platform can be considered as the definitive knowledge broker for statistical content in the Caribbean. With a digital repository of just under 600 curated knowledge assets, and the recent addition of navigational access to the catalog of over 230 knowledge resources and learning content produced by the Project for the Regional Advancement of Statistics in the Caribbean (PRASC), the eCISTAR KnowledgeBase provides access to a variety of knowledge resources and products, inclusive of audio/visual materials, presentations, technical guidelines and manuals, regional and international classifications, and statistical best practices.
The challenge for knowledge seekers is not availability or accessibility of information. Rather, it is discoverability, relevance and authenticity of knowledge and information that are the key attributes.
The majority of the resident knowledge content covers 3 statistical domains: Economic statistics, Environment and Multi-domain statistics and Methodology of data collection, processing, dissemination and analysis. These resources are further classified in four main areas – Financial statistics, Balance of payments statistics, information and communication technology indicators and national accounts. The repository is readily searchable through standardized metadata and documents are easily retrievable with additional features for commenting or finding related articles.
The eCISTAR platform also provides a novel dashboard tool that provides a very flexible navigational capability to enhance the discoverability and retrieval of digital assets from the recently published PRASC Knowledge base currently housed in the ECLAC digital repository.
With access to this rich statistical knowledge content and navigational features, the eCISTAR provides a distinctive Knowledge Broker for the regional Caribbean statistics community that emphasizes:
Discoverability
The customized Navigator Tool provides an intuitive graphical UI to query, search and retrieve documents from the digital archives. This enables users to easily discover and navigate to the kinds of knowledge content they are looking for. Once an item is found it can be retrieved in a variety of formats including pdf, presentations, spreadsheet templates and videos. A really nice feature is the built-in social media integration that enables the user to readily share any item found in the KnowledgeBase with their social media network.
Relevance
The majority of the KB content is designed for the Caribbean context and includes Templates, Reference documents and guides, Country examples and Videos drawn from the activities and experiences of various country NSOs across the region. Typical examples include:
- Examples of the census dissemination communication plans from the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB) and Barbados Statistical Service (BSS)
- Estimation of population size in small spatial areas using the population and census data from Trinidad and Tobago for 1990, 2000 and 2011.
- Best practices on managing communications and media in times of crisis from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN)
Authenticity
The eCISTAR knowledge resources are curated from regional and international authoritative sources, including country NSOs, regional development partners such as UN-ECLAC, the CARICOM Secretariat Regional Statistics Program, UWI-SALISES and International Development Partners such as FAO, UN-Women, and Statistics Canada.
The eCISTAR Knowledge Base is being positioned as the digital repository for knowledge content generated from various statistical capacity-building interventions across the region, including: training courses, workshops, statistical research studies, policy guidelines, standards documents, etc. We encourage you to explore, discover and make full use of this innovative facility.
