Question
When the geographic area(s) that describe a dataset are redefined, how does Data Buffet signal the change?
Answer
What is a geographic change?
A country with a mature statistical apparatus will maintain one or more "statistical geographic classifications" (SGCs) with which to uniformly organize its subnational demographic and economic data. An SGC is mutable: the boundary between adjacent areas may shift, one area may split, two or more adjacent areas may merge, and so forth. Such a definitional change is often triggered by a change in administrative responsibility (e.g., consolidation of municipal governments) or a change in population.
Similar changes at the international level are possible, but less common.
How do our sources react?
- The source may report a single continuous series with a definitional break.
- It may report two distinct series with overlapping periods.
How does Data Buffet react?
Data Buffet has geo code subsets that parallel the SGC promulgated by each country, and we monitor for changes.
- If the boundaries change, we declare a new geo code.
- If the source reports two distinct series, we archive the pre-split series and create a replacement post-split series, so as to preserve both trends.
- We may elect to discontinue datasets we do not consider mission-critical to Data Buffet.
- For those datasets that are reported on a year-to-date (YTD) basis, with current and year-ago periods rather than contiguous history, there will be a temporary gap in the replacement series until the source reports past periods.
- The replacement concept code may be dissimilar to its predecessor. To retrieve active data, you will need to adapt your baskets and other automated retrievals.
How can you recognize a changed series or dataset?
- Examine the Data Buffet catalog for definitional headers.
- A predecessor series will generally contain an archive specifier in the concept code. This is often two-digit year (e.g., "_13") that represents a distinctive feature (e.g., the index base year) or year that contains the last reported period.
- For a continuous series, the "source" metadata (visible in Mnemonic 411, View mode, and basket output) will notate, in square brackets, "[Break in geo from period-after-break]".
- When you run a legacy basket and examine the "description" metadata of a series, it is now marked "[DISCONTINUED]".
- When you run a legacy basket and it reports "series not found," that indicates we have created a replacement series with a dissimilar mnemonic.
- For the impacted country, look for "Geo Change" article on Data Buffet News, which will link to each impacted release.
- For each impacted dataset, look for a "Data Change ... Geo" or "Data Change ..." article, which will link to the "Geo Change" article.
See also
Subnational changes:
National and international changes:
Dataset changes:
Background: