Universities to get Desktop Access to ABS Data Storehouse Via the Web, Apr 2000

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	17 April, 2000 42/2000 JOINT MEDIA RELEASE ABS AND AUSTRALIAN VICE-CHANCELLORS' COMMITTEE UNIVERSITIES TO GET DESKTOP ACCESS TO ABS DATA STOREHOUSE VIA THE WEB CANBERRA. The Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today signed an agreement that will unlock a huge range of ABS statistics for online use by Australia's university staff and students. The agreement provides access to ABS data via the web for academic and teaching purposes at 37 Australian Universities. It builds on the outstanding success of the first AVCC/ABS university sector arrangement for ABS survey data earlier last year. This is the first time the ABS has concluded a sector wide agreement for the delivery of this information. The AusStats service agreement delivers desktop access for University staff and students to thousands of pages of Web data , 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with daily updating of significant economic and social data. AusStats is the new ABS online subscription service. AusStats delivers timely access to more than 2,000 ABS Publications, time series data and tables (over 90,000 series in spreadsheet format), metadata (documentation of surveys, concepts and data items), economic models and 1996 Census Basic Community Profiles. New data will be added as it becomes available. The Executive Director of the AVCC, Stuart Hamilton, said that the agreement was a fantastic opportunity for universities to deliver ABS data to support academic and teaching purposes. This in turn would support more informed decision making within the university sector, government and the community. The agreement also demonstrates the university sector's innovative response to the dynamic web technology environment. "Access to this greatly increased range of data will generate important opportunities for high quality academic research and teaching projects," Mr Hamilton said. "In turn, this should give us better planning. Joint action by universities under this agreement should significantly lower the cost of providing desktop access to all staff and students using the latest technology." The Australian Statistician, Bill McLennan, said that this agreement, which follows on from the very successful AVCC/ABS agreement for provision of survey data, represents the next logical step towards the ABS goal of making data more accessible to university staff and students for academic and teaching purposes. The thirty-seven universities that will benefit from the AVCC/ABS agreement are: The University of Adelaide Australian Catholic University The Australian National University University of Ballarat Bond University University of Canberra Central Queensland University Charles Sturt University Curtin University of Technology Deakin University Edith Cowan University The Flinders University of South Australia Griffith University James Cook University La Trobe University Macquarie University University of Melbourne Monash University Murdoch University The University of New England The University of New South Wales The University of Newcastle Northern Territory University The University of Queensland Queensland University of Technology Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University of South Australia Southern Cross University University of Southern Queensland Swinburne University of Technology The University of Sydney University of Tasmania University of Technology, Sydney Victoria University The University of Western Australia University of Western Sydney University of Wollongong Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.