Republic of the Philippines

NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE

Reference No. 10IRD00-025

NSO Web Policy

1. INTRODUCTION

The National Statistics Office (NSO) has adopted Internet-based web technology as
one of its key electronic dissemination initiatives. Since the launching of the NSO
website1 in August 1997, the contents of the NSO website had been continuously
expanded and updated. However, the contents structure remained basically the
same over the years and has become less responsive to the users expectations.
There were also feedbacks that the NSO website has become more wanting in
terms of providing a positive user experience.

This document, referred to as the NSO Web Policy, provides for the principles and
guidelines for an orderly and sustained development and maintenance of the NSO
website as a key dissemination channel. It should be able to provide the necessary
direction for the regular build-up of the NSO website as well as the development of
implementation standards suitable for the organization.

2. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The NSO recognizes the web as a strategic information dissemination medium. As

such, the following principles are explicitly stated to provide overall guidance in all
the tasks that may be undertaken towards the NSO website.

2.1. The NSO website shall represent the corporate image of the NSO as a public
service provider in the global community of data users and stakeholders. It
shall be oriented towards strengthening the image and confidence of the
public upon the NSO as an institution. The NSO website shall not be geared
towards the promotion of specific individual interests of any NSO employee or
official or from government, nor will it entertain materials from individuals,
groups or organizations that are neither related nor significant to the mandate
of the NSO.

2.2. The NSO shall strive to provide through the NSO website a rich and
authoritative set of contents that are relevant to the mandate of the Office.

1
It must be noted that the term “NSO Website” as used in this document specifically refers to the publicly-
accessible website of the NSO. While some provisions in this document may also be applicable to the
“NSO Website for Internal Use” or the Intranet site, it should be clear to the reader that the
implementation of the NSO Web Policy is focused mainly on the NSO Website.
 Content, accessibility and universal usability, among other key considerations,
shall be ensured.

2.3. Materials posted in the NSO website without access restrictions shall be given
a status of “published for public consumption” and shall be considered as
official issuances or releases of the NSO. Use of such materials by direct
users shall be free-of-charge and subject to applicable source citation policies
that may be issued by the NSO. The NSO shall ensure that such published
materials have met the necessary criteria for quality or accuracy and have
passed the standards set under an electronic dissemination setup.

2.4. The development and maintenance of the NSO website shall be a

collaborative task of all departments. While the Information Resources
Department (IRD) plays a major role in the technical operation of the website,
all departments shall contribute relevant contents and materials and shall
actively participate in setting the direction and content organization of the NSO
website.

3. SPECIFIC GUIDELINES ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF

THE NSO WEBSITE

Contents and Clearance Considerations

3.1. In general, any material officially released or cleared by the NSO as well as
general information useful to the public are eligible for posting in the NSO
website. Materials or files identified for posting shall be cleared by at least the
head of the department responsible for the subject or the data. In case the
material can not be directly attributed as the responsibility of a specific
department or when the material is considered a special subject area
produced as part of a multi-department effort, then the clearance for such
materials shall be provided by the chairperson or lead official of the group
designated to produce such material.

3.2. As part of the clearance process, the concerned source department/special

group shall be responsible for the review of the target material as well as its
preview prior to making it available for public access via the website.

3.3. Unless cleared by the NSO Administrator, publications or files intended for
sale and whose selling price is at least P500 may not be posted in their
entirety. However, extracts or subsets of these materials may be allowed for
posting to serve as teasers for the promotion of said materials. As an
alternative, all the contents of the specific material for sale, regardless of its
selling price, may also be posted in the NSO website provided the contents
THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INTERNAL USE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE. UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY A
DESIGNATED NSO OFFICIAL, IT SHALL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED NOR PROVIDED TO PARTIES OTHER THAN NSO
EMPLOYEES AND OFFICIALS.
D:\NSO-Policies\NSO Web Policy (19-Aug-2010).doc 2
 are distributed into their respective data categories and not accessible as a
single package.

3.4. Commercial advertisement for products or services not related to the functions
or activities of the NSO shall not be allowed. However, materials or hyperlinks
as may be required either by law or by government-wide directives shall be
allowed for posting in the NSO website. Materials from other agencies or
partner institutions may be allowed at the NSO website subject to approval of
the NSO Administrator.

3.5. The website shall provide for publicly-accessible guidelines on user

acknowledgment and material attribution of NSO website contents. Materials
sourced from non-NSO entities shall be acknowledged by citing the specific
sources of said materials.

Revisions and Recall of Materials

3.6. Materials that are already accessible online and found to have defects or
inaccuracies may be temporarily recalled or placed in an offline status. The
recall request shall be made by at least the division head concerned and the
Clearing Officer as identified in Sec 3.1 shall likewise be alerted of such recall.

3.7. The web visitor should be made aware of the current status of a recalled or
offline material. The index or table of contents entry corresponding to a
recalled material shall provide indication that the material is offline, under
revision or other remarks as may be appropriate. Alternatively, the material
when invoked, can display a substitute message about its current status.

Material Retention and Exposure Length

3.8. Materials posted in the NSO website, especially those belonging to a specific
data series, shall be made available online for as long as the NSO web server
capacity can permit.

3.9. Materials intended for posting for specific durations are considered ad-hoc
contents and may be offloaded after their purpose have been served.

3.10. All offloaded materials shall be maintained in a networked archive site that can
be accessed internally at NSO when necessary.

Webpage Design Considerations

3.11. Website contents should be organized or structured taking into consideration

the point of view of the users rather than NSO’s internal work units.
THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INTERNAL USE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE. UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY A
DESIGNATED NSO OFFICIAL, IT SHALL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED NOR PROVIDED TO PARTIES OTHER THAN NSO
EMPLOYEES AND OFFICIALS.
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 3.12. Website pages should predominantly be in the form of dynamic pages (or
database-driven) rather than static pages.

3.13. A good balance between aesthetic appearance and response time shall be
adopted. Use of animation and graphics may be allowed for improving
aesthetic appearance but extent of use should be tempered to avoid
distractions and minimize impact on bandwidth requirements.

3.14. Templates and formatting guides shall be developed for uniformity and ease of
webpage development.

3.15. The website shall be browser-neutral allowing proper display of its pages by at
least the top three widely used browser software.

Data Formats

3.16. Data files posted in the website for public downloading shall be in widely
accepted or standard formats allowing users to carry out post-processing in
their own technical environment.

Gathering of User Feedback

3.17. The website shall provide ways by which user feedback or comments can be
obtained. In order to minimize possible misuse by users, feedback forms shall
provide safeguards against automated entry such as the use of CAPTCHA2 or
other similar features. Categories for feedback or comments may also be
developed to allow for quick classification of user inputs.

Visitor Privacy

3.18. Personal information including email addresses supplied by NSO website

visitors shall not be published nor divulged to anyone other than NSO staff
authorized to process the information.

Website Space Provision for NSO Field Offices

3.19. The NSO web server shall be configured to have enough computing power,
disk capacities and bandwidth capable of accommodating the webpages of at
least the NSO regional offices. Webpages of provincial offices may also be

2
CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not
generated by a computer. A common type of CAPTCHA requires that the user type letters or digits from a
distorted image that appears on the screen. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA)
THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INTERNAL USE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE. UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY A
DESIGNATED NSO OFFICIAL, IT SHALL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED NOR PROVIDED TO PARTIES OTHER THAN NSO
EMPLOYEES AND OFFICIALS.
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 accommodated subject to available server capacities and on a first-come-first-
serve basis. The IRD shall develop the necessary guidelines for the
implementation of this provision.

Website Usage Monitoring and Analytics

3.20. In order to provide basis to assess utilization and viewership of web materials,
there shall be provisions in the NSO website technical configuration allowing
the compilation of usage statistics.

Website Backup and Security

3.21. Unscheduled downtimes for the NSO website shall be minimized. To ensure
continuity of operations, there shall be conduct of periodic backups as well as
technical precautions against hacking and intrusions including restricted
access to sensitive server configurations.

Use of Open Source Software

3.22. Use of established and reliable open source software both in the development
and hosting of the NSO website shall be adopted to the extent possible.

Use of Webmaster Title

3.23. The “Webmaster” title as commonly indicated in many websites as a point of

contact for web visitors shall not be bestowed upon a specific individual at
NSO. It shall collectively refer to the NSO Web Team as described in Sec 5.

4. NSO FIELD OFFICE WEBSITES

Field office websites physically hosted at the Central Office server and are using the
NSO official domain name (www.census.gov.ph) to display a web page shall be
treated as subsets of the NSO website. These field office websites shall adhere to
whatever standards and protocols developed at the Central Office for the NSO
website. However, the responsibility related to the development and maintenance of
these field office websites including the review for accuracy and quality shall
primarily belong to the concerned field office.

NSO field offices whose websites are not hosted at the Central Office server may not
be able to adhere to all the provisions of this policy due to constraints imposed by
the web host provider. Nevertheless, these field offices shall still be responsible for
the development and maintenance of their websites. Likewise, they shall also ensure
accuracy and quality of the information or materials posted in their respective
THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INTERNAL USE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE. UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY A
DESIGNATED NSO OFFICIAL, IT SHALL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED NOR PROVIDED TO PARTIES OTHER THAN NSO
EMPLOYEES AND OFFICIALS.
D:\NSO-Policies\NSO Web Policy (19-Aug-2010).doc 5
 websites. All other provisions of this policy that are not subjected to web host
provider-related limitations shall be adhered to.

Some inexpensive or free web host providers may be available for NSO field offices.
These providers usually impose some space limitations as well as possible
advertisements associated with the website to be established. NSO field offices
should be cautioned against readily availing of these web host providers without first
looking at their reputations. NSO field offices should be wary of free hosting
providers associated with illegal or indecent activities due to potential damage to the
image of the NSO as an institution.

5. FORMATION OF NSO WEB TEAM AND SUPPORT GROUPS

In order to provide for a sustained and organized effort in the development and
maintenance of the NSO website, an inter-department team shall be formed. The
team, which shall be referred to as the NSO Web Team, shall be the primary group
to develop, maintain and make the NSO website useful and relevant. It shall be led
by a division head of the IRD and with members from all departments and the Office
of the Administrator. The IRD Director shall have oversight functions and guidance
over the activities of the NSO Web Team. Members of the Team shall at least be of
Salary Grade 14 and shall have a term of two to three years, subject to renewal or
replacement resulting from exigencies. The specific Terms of Reference and actual
membership of the NSO Web Team shall be issued through an Office Order.

The DISD shall serve as the home base of NSO website activities. It shall also
provide secretariat functions to the NSO Web Team.

To provide additional support to the NSO Web Team, departments may also
organize their own groups to assist in the identification, creation and packaging of
materials suitable for posting into the NSO website. These department-level groups
may also conduct quality reviews for both posted and still-to-be-posted materials
relevant to their subject areas.

NSO field offices may similarly form groups parallel to the Central Office organization
to spearhead their own website development and maintenance.

6. DEVELOPMENT OF IMPLEMENTATION STANDARDS AND WORK PROTOCOLS

The NSO Web Team shall also formulate internal implementation standards, guides,
templates, workflows and protocols necessary for the day-to-day development and
maintenance of the NSO website. The corresponding documentation for such
implementation guides shall be accessible online but within the NSO only.
THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INTERNAL USE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE. UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY A
DESIGNATED NSO OFFICIAL, IT SHALL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED NOR PROVIDED TO PARTIES OTHER THAN NSO
EMPLOYEES AND OFFICIALS.
D:\NSO-Policies\NSO Web Policy (19-Aug-2010).doc 6
 The implementation guides developed and/or adopted at the Central Office shall also
be shared to the NSO field offices to provide additional guidance in their web
maintenance.

7. CAPABILITY BUILDING

The IRD shall draw up a plan for building capacities not only of the NSO Web Team
but also of the support groups in the departments.

8. MIGRATION OF PRESENT NSO WEBSITE

The current NSO website shall be transformed into a state that conforms to pertinent
provisions in this document. The transformation and migration of contents shall be
completed within 18 months from approval of this document.

9. POLICY REVIEW AND CHANGES

The IRD shall take the lead role in the conduct of periodic review of this policy and
where appropriate make recommendations on possible improvements and/or
updating.

10. EFFECTIVITY

This policy shall take effect upon its approval.

APPROVED.
19 August 2010

THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INTERNAL USE OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICS OFFICE. UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY A
DESIGNATED NSO OFFICIAL, IT SHALL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED NOR PROVIDED TO PARTIES OTHER THAN NSO
EMPLOYEES AND OFFICIALS.
D:\NSO-Policies\NSO Web Policy (19-Aug-2010).doc 7