By Sharon Omahen


University of Georgia

Students across the state are collecting their supplies and
heading back to school. Adding a University of Georgia web site
to their supply list will make report writing on their county or
the State of Georgia, a lot easier.

With a few clicks of a computer mouse, the Georgia Statistics
System, found at

www.georgiastats.uga.edu
generates statistical
data on all 159 Georgia counties. The site allows visitors to
generate county-specific information on agriculture, courts and
crime, economics, education, government, health, housing, labor,
natural resources, population, public assistance, transportation
and vital statistics.

From farms to schools

Agriculture information ranges from the number of farms in
a
county to farmer income levels. Crime information includes the
number of juvenile arrests and the percentage of probationers
living in a county.

Economic information provides a breakdown of each county’s
household median income, the number of residents living below
poverty level and the total lottery sales in the county.

Education data includes the racial breakdown of students,
the
number of high school dropouts and the number of teachers in the
public school system.

All of the data for the site comes from the Georgia County
Guide
and the Farmgate Value Report. Both are annual publications of
UGA’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development. The web
site now makes this information readily available to anyone with
Internet access.

“We wanted to get this information out on the Internet so
that
more people would have access to it,” said Warren Kriesel, an
agricultural economist with UGA’s College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences. “In February of 2001, we went on-line and
since then we’ve had more than 60,000 individual requests for
information.”

Population information most popular

The site also includes agriculture fact sheets for each
county in
Georgia and a demographic profile of each county. A population
table shows the racial breakdown of each city in Georgia.

Kriesel says visitors to the site range from school
students and
administrators to county planners and bank presidents.

“We have a built-in system that allows us to track our
users,” he
said. “We get a lot of hits from newspapers, school systems,
colleges across the state, planning agencies and real estate
agencies.”

The site also keeps track of what information is most
requested.

“The most popular information is population data, followed
by
education, economic, year-to-year analyses and shift share
analyses,” Kriesel said.

As one of the web site’s planners, Kriesel says visitors
enjoy
the anonymity of accessing personalized data using web
technology.

“Most people like the fact that they can access the
information
from their home or office and they never have to actually talk to
a person or be put on hold,” Kriesel said. “I do still get phone
calls, but usually it’s someone wanting us to add even more
information to the site.”