This is the flagship journal of the International Association for Official Statistics and is expected to be widely circulated and subscribed to by individuals and institutions in all parts of the world. The main aim of the journal is to support the IAOS mission by publishing articles to promote the understanding and advancement of official statistics and to foster the development of effective and efficient official statistical services on a global basis. Papers are expected to be of wide interest to readers. Such papers may or may not contain strictly original material. All papers are refereed. The journal has an Editor-in-Chief who is responsible for ensuring that the journal focuses on current and emerging issues and challenges related to the management, production and use of official statistics and related public policy matters. The journal should publish papers of wide interest to both users and producers of official statistics. The journal should encourage papers with a focus on the basic principles for official statistics covering areas such as the importance of applying the best scientific methods, the need for statistical independence, balancing the needs of users with the burden on respondents, the continuing challenges around confidentiality, and the growing need for consistency and coherence across statistical domains and over time and for international comparability. As a guide, articles relating, but not exclusively, to the following broad topics will be of interest to the journal:
- Developments and challenges for both global and national statistical systems
- Statistical independence and legislation
- New directions for official statistics
- Delivering relevant and effective statistical services
- New and innovative ways of increasing uses and users of official statistics
- Quality of official statistics
- Engagement of producers
- Innovative use of ICT for official statistics
- Creative use of both new and existing statistical sources
- Organisation of statistical services
- Statistical infrastructure and tools
- Management of statistical and related metadata
- Innovative statistical products and services
- Training of statistical staff, users and producers
- Improving statistical literacy in the community
Authors and referees of all papers should bear in mind that many of the readers of the journal (particularly in the developing world) do not have easy access to libraries or to other journals, and therefore are strongly encouraged to make the papers as self-contained as possible, while of course giving proper bibliographic credit. Papers of more than 30 manuscript pages, including diagrams, tables and references, will normally not be considered for publication.