Revising the core ICT indicators 2008 Global Event

Revising the core ICT indicators 2008 Global Event on Measuring the Information Society Geneva, 27 -29 May 2008 Sheridan Roberts

Introduction • This presentation proposes some revisions to the existing core ICT indicators. • The aim is to improve the availability and international comparability of the indicators. • The scope of the presentation excludes the infrastructure and access indicators and the proposed new education indicators. • The main focus is on the survey-based indicators (household access and individual use, business use and the ICT producing sector).

Relatively minor changes • Technical changes to a number of existing definitions (e. g. radio, Internet, mobile telephone, extranet, Internet access services) – they are not expected to affect statistical time series. • Clarification and minor changes to other definitions and notes on the core indicators (e. g. expand definition of government organizations) • Increased emphasis on some of the issues which are known sources of non-comparability – for example, most ‘response item’ questions should allow multiple responses, Internet access is not only by computer. • Changes to (and additional) advice on deriving, reporting and aggregating the more complex core indicators (that is, those with response categories).

More major changes • Remove the distinction: basic and extended core indicators (affects household access, individual use, business use) • Add or split response categories to reflect changing practices and policy interests – including two mobile access categories in the ‘location of individual use of the Internet’ indicator (HH 9). • Remove some of the ‘other’ and aggregated categories (these are inconsistently reported) • Change to lower age scope cut-off for individuals (from 16 year to either 16 or 15 years) • Recognition of age groups for children (either 5 -14 years or 10 -14 years depending on collection scope) and a small business size category (0 -9 employees) • Add a new indicator on business mobile phone use.

Major changes to indicators on Access to, and use of, ICT by households and individuals

Major changes to indicators on Use of ICT by businesses

Core ICT indicators on the ICT sector • The indicators are: – ICT 1 Proportion of total business sector workforce involved in the ICT sector (expressed as a percentage) – ICT 2 Value added in the ICT sector (as a percentage of total business sector value added) • Slight name changes are suggested, the main one being that ICT 2 would explicitly refer to ‘gross value added’ • The data from ICT 1 and ICT 2 are not very comparable due to different (often broader) definitions of the ICT sector (and the total business sector) • The main change is to the definition of the ICT sector (based on ISIC Rev. 4 and the topic of the next talk) • Should we adapt the current ISIC Rev 3. 1 definition (narrowing it by removing 3130, 3312 and 3313) to match the guiding principles of the new definition?

Core ICT indicators trade in ICT goods • The indicators are: – ICT 3 ICT goods imports as a percentage of total imports – ICT 4 ICT goods exports as a percentage of total exports • They are based on international trade data and no changes are proposed at this stage • However, like the ICT sector, the definition of ICT goods will change (with the introduction of the CPC Ver. 2 and its HS 2007 equivalent) – this will be discussed in the next presentation. • Should we consider adapting the current HS 1996/2002 definition (narrowing it to match the guiding principles of the new ICT sector definition) by removing the group ‘Other ICT goods’ and two ‘cable’ products?

Thank you • Are there any questions? • Your views are sought on these proposals • Please send your ideas to me on sheridanroberts@hotmail. com