Developing and hosting web data apps in R programming for official statistics

Abstract

Official statistics place particular emphasis on communication and dissemination of surveys’ results to citizens and stakeholders. This is typically done through the publication of press releases and presentation of aggregated data of statistical surveys. The use of web services and software that allow users to interact with the results of official statistics comes to further enhance communication, dissemination, literacy and overall quality of official statistics. This paper is related to the objectives and context of reaching a wider audience through engaging users and explains how an NSO (National Statistical Office) member without specialized knowledge of frontend-backend programming techniques can create such web services in R programming environment through “Shiny” library. The paper also reviews the issue of hosting “Shiny” apps and presents existing approaches. For demonstration purposes, an experimental version of such an application was constructed that presents in an interactive way the quarterly results of the new statistical product of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) on Greek business demography.