The Canadian Census Data Discovery Partnership (CCDDP) is pleased to share its second research project update. In February 2022, the CCDDP User Needs Working Group partnered with the Western University Network on Economic and Social Trends (NEST) to host a consultative workshop event Disseminating Census Data: Learning from Experience.

The event brought together international leaders in census dissemination to share best practices on challenges associated with the dissemination of contemporary and historical census data to academic researchers and the public. The lessons learned at this event will help the partnership in developing its platform and strategy for the project, and toward an improved vision of Census data discovery and dissemination in Canada moving forward, and also to create an international community of practice regarding these matters.

More information on the event, participants, presentations, and a synthesis document can be found on the User Needs Working Group page.

Committee and Working Group Updates

Beginning in 2021, four working groups and committees were formed to initiate CCDDP’s Project Goals. From January 2022 to now, working groups and committees have been meeting monthly, and the following summarizes their progress.

Steering Committee

chaired by Leanne Trimble (University of Toronto)

Mandate: responsible for leading the CCDDP project. This committee meets monthly to guide the project’s direction and oversee progress towards the project’s goals.

Updates:

  • Steering committee continues to provide support for the project working groups as they work towards project deliverables.
  • Notably, these past few months have been busy as the steering committee worked to support the consultative workshop event and bring in more strategic partners.

Census Inventory Working Group

chaired by Leanne Trimble (University of Toronto)

Mandate: responsible for the completion of the census inventory, ensuring that it meets the requirements of the project and the needs of the discovery portal.

Updates:

  • 68/136 censuses have now been inventoried (Jan 2022)
  • Collaborating with the User Needs Working Group to seek input on the census inventory (including equity, diversity and inclusion principles, and inventory structure, metadata, and taxonomies) and adjust the inventory as needed to meet user needs and their identified priorities.
  • Collaborating with the User Needs Working Group to conduct a stakeholder consultation on integrated searching across censuses (date TBD).

User Needs Working Group

chaired by Susan Mowers (University of Ottawa)

Mandate: responsible for working with census data stakeholders to carry out user needs consultations around census data discovery, and subsequently, discovery portal design and development, for the CCDDP project.

Updates:

  • Disseminating Census Data: Learning from Experience event hosted with the University of Western Ontario’s Network on Economic and Social Trends.
  • Release of consultation report, “Findings from structured questions concerning Canadian census data use and discovery, and future directions”, from the stakeholder consultation conducted at DLI National Training Week.
  • Scoping review of discovery features and coverage of Canadian census portals is underway. This is being done through coordinating collaborative, group-sourced, sprints, assessing the data discovery functionalities of existing census portals.
  • Collaborating with the Inventory Working Group to conduct a stakeholder consultation on integrated searching across censuses (date TBD) and further topics.

Communications Committee

chaired by Katie Cuyler (University of Alberta)

Mandate: Responsible for managing and coordinating communications for the CCDDP project.

Updates:

  • Assisting committees and working groups in their communication needs.
  • Functionality to post news and project updates to social media through the project website has been added.
  • Web pages for project committees and working groups added to the project website.