Republic of Moldova - nr.2 in the world and nr. 1 in Europe on coverage and openness of data

In 2015 the Open Data Watch - Open Data Inventory (ODIN) www.odin.opendatawatch.com assessed the coverage and openness of official statistics in 125 mostly low- and middle-income countries and has developed a report "How open are official statistics?". According to this study, Republic of Moldova has ranked nr.2 in the world and nr. 1 in Europe on coverage and openness of official statistical data.

The Open Data Inventory (ODIN) is an assessment of the coverage and openness of data provided on the websites maintained by national statistical offices (NSOs). In the case of the Republic of Moldova, the official webpage of national Bureau of Statistics old.statistica.md was assessed and Statistical databank https://statbank.statistica.md/pxweb/Database/EN/databasetree.asp.

How are Open Data defined? As summarized in the Open Definition version 2.1 “Knowledge is open if anyone is free to access, use, modify, and share it — subject, at most, to measures that preserve provenance and openness.” In practical terms open data should be machine readable in non-proprietary formats, selectable by users, accompanied by accurate metadata, and free to be used and reused for any purpose without limitations other than acknowledgement of the original source.

Each assessment covers 20 categories of social, economic, and environmental statistics. Each data category is assessed on five elements of coverage and five elements of openness. Aggregate scores are computed across the categories and elements and for sub-groups of categories and elements. The overall ODIN score is an indicator of how complete and open an NSO’s data offerings are. The categorical scores for social, economic, and environmental statistics and summary scores for coverage and openness produce a picture of the national statistical systems’ strengths and weaknesses. In 2015 no country’s ODIN score reached 70 percent of the total possible points. The highest scoring country was Mexico, with a score of 68 percent, followed closely by Moldova with 66. From European countries with medium and low income, Moldova is on 1st place.

By providing a comprehensive view of the coverage and openness of official statistics, ODIN will help to identify critical gaps, promote open data policies, improve data access, and encourage dialogue between NSOs and data users.

• Full report ODIN  http://odin.opendatawatch.com/Downloads/otherFiles/ODIN-2015-Annual-Report.pdf
• Profile of Moldova http://odin.opendatawatch.com/Report/countryProfile/MDA
• Report for Republic of Moldova http://odin.opendatawatch.com/Downloads/CountryProfile/MDA_profile_ODIN2015.pdf
• Official ODIN webpage  http://odin.opendatawatch.com/