Statipedia: A wiki platform for 

collaboration across agencies 

FCSM 2012 

Washington Convention Center, 10 Jan 2012 

Peter B. Meyer 

Office of Productivity and Technology, BLS 

. 

 with lots of advice from others 

James A. Buszuwski 

Office of Compensation and Working 

Conditions, BLS 

Michael Messner 

Office of Water, EPA 

. . .not representing the agency, just the named 

www.bls.gov authors 
Vision: share methodology 

information online 

Statipedia is a wiki for statistical staff across agencies 

 An online workspace 

 With methodology source material 

 Pilot project 

 Not for the public (outside .gov) 

 Not for sensitive content (e.g. early data or PII) 

 Modeled on Wikipedia and on Intellipedia at intel agencies 

2 
Knowledge pooling 

We can 

 Share definitions 

 Copy one another’s designs, procedures, software 

 Develop materials together easily 

 Enable new staff to figure out more

Development of science and technology goes faster with 

easily shared knowledge 

Platform is cheap and robust to budget uncertainty 

Can help us get things done cheaply 3 
Looks like 

Wikipedia. 

User can 

edit a 

page 

directly. 
A user can 

see the 

history of 

changes to 

a wiki 

page.
We can 

define 

common 

terms 
Describe and 

search 

classification 

systems 
Can share 

source 

code 
“BLS” is a 

category, 

with subcategories
Recent 

changes to 

the wiki
History 

of our 

kind of 

work 
Can share 

info on 

seminars easer 

in DC 

area
Track 

conferences 

on our 

topics
Can compare 

procedures 

across agencies 

This is one of 

many “At the 

agencies” pages 
Can share 

simple 

training 

materials 

in the wiki
And 

detailed 

training 

materials

-searching 

- links and footnotes that can be 

clicked for more info 

- equations can be copied 
Discussion 

of critical 

perspectives 
New issues

Quick 

technical 

discussion
Institutions 
Norms for admins and users 

 Scale up: Benefits rise as communities of interest emerge 

 Meet open technical standards 

 HTML, TEX, wiki-text links, extensions 

 Participate in software development 

 Co-evolution: Today’s community, technology, platform 

  Tomorrow’s community, technology, platform 

 Voluntary participation ; serve and empower staff 

 Anchor discussions to sources, evidence, theory 

 Enable drilling down to sources 

 Address broad audiences -- not organization-specific 
Pilot project -- issues 

 Logging in each time 

 Would benefit from federal single sign-on

 Text editors not easy 

 Content limited (650 pages) 

 Few users post information 

 Has not been used for an actual project 

25
Anticipated long run effects on 

knowledge management 

More efficient/scientific communities 

 Shared source material, more reference points 

 Mutual awareness and peer review 

Reduce duplication of effort 

Specialists serve larger audience 

 Users can find them on this platform 

Ease training and turnover 

Less email?  “discoverability” not “dissemination” 

TOGETHER, the agencies have vast, diverse expertise and 

capability, economies of scale and scope, knowledge of 

data, and great computer resources 

26
Conclusions and future steps 

Statipedia is a wiki for statistical staff across agencies 

 With methodology source material 

 Not for the public (but could include non-.gov) 

 Not for sensitive content 

 Content is growing 

 In future 

 Can adopt and develop more tools and content 

 Share source code better (not just on wiki) 

 Make it more quickly and easily available and usable 

27
Contact Information 

Meyer.Peter@bls.gov 

202-691-5678

 Buszuwski.James@bls.gov 

202-691-6238

 Messner.Michael@epa.gov 

www.bls.gov