Guidelines of the Federal Statistical Organizations

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) joined with the 13 other major Federal statistical agencies and organizational units in drafting a common approach to the OMB guidelines for information quality. The common approach, published as a notice in the Federal Register ( HTML-25KB | PDF-25KB) on June 4, 2002, has been adopted by the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy (ICSP).

In keeping with the general activities of statistical agencies, the notice lists eight areas for which agencies are expected to establish high standards of performance:

• Development of concepts and methods;
• Planning and design of surveys and other means of collecting data;
• Collection of data;
• Processing and editing of data;
• Analysis of data;
• Production of estimates or projections;
• Establishment of review procedures; and
• Dissemination of data by published reports, electronic files and other media requested by users.

The approach notes that agencies vary substantially in the degree to which they are engage in these activities. The eight statistical activity areas are covered in the Guide to Good Statistical Practice in the Transportation Field as follows:

• Introduction
• Planning Data Systems, including
• Development of concepts and methods;
• Planning and design of surveys and other means of collecting data;
• Collection of Data
• Processing Data, including
• Processing and editing of data;
• Analysis of data;
• Production of estimates or projections;
• Dissemination of Information
• Evaluating Information Quality