Working Party on Application of  New Technology to Population Data
First Meeting
24-26 September 1997
Bangkok

• Introduction
• Population and housing census
• Data dissemination in NSO
• Statistical information searching system
• Internet technology in Thailand
• Internet in the NSO Thailand
• Conclusion

National Statistical office of Thailand has been in charge of conducting census since 1960 under the authorization of 1962 Statistical Act (revised in 1965) and in accordance with the United Nations' recommendation that countries should undertake censuses in order to collect information on population and other characteristics as well as housing conditions at least every ten years. In 1970 NSO has conducted the first housing census simultaneously with the population census. The next population and housing census plans to conduct in April in the year of 2000.

The main objective of the population and housing census is to collect statistical information on the number, age and sex structure, fertility, education, occupation and migration of the population and the type and condition of housing.

NSO will use the sample census enumeration technique as being used on the previous 1970 and 1980 census by, all persons and households will be listed and enumerated with the short form questionnaire except for the sample households which will be enumerated with the long form questionnaire by In Bangkok Metropolis and non-municipal area the sample size is 20 percent, for municipal area (exclude Bangkok Metropolis) the sample size is 50 percent.

There are two type of questionnaire form. 

The short form questionnaire is used for enumerating the main characteristic of population, the topic will be on the number of household members, age, sex, marital status, education and occupation. 

The long form questionnaire is used for enumerating the main and more detail characteristic of population and housing, the topic will be on the number of household members, age, sex, marital status, education, and occupation, migration and fertility as well as type and condition of housing. 

The school teachers will be used for enumerator and supervisor in all area except   for Bangkok Metropolis the temporary employees will be used because of school teachers might not be enough.

For the 2000 Population and Housing census the listing form and the questionnaire forms of both short and long form questionnaires will be manual edited and data keying by using the microcomputers station at the provincial office. After that the data will transfer to Bangkok in order to be machine edited by using the main frame computer station at the central office before tabulation. 

The reason that NSO decide to use microcomputer keying the data instead of using OCR or OMR because NSO has set up the computer net work by linking 150 personal computers which were station in every province to the IBM 3090 at the central office in Bangkok since 1994. Since then the provincial statistical office personals were trained to use microcomputer along with computer operator and data entry operator.

At present the listing form from the surveys, the village survey, and the gross provincial product information are now being data entry at the provinces. They are now capable of producing their own annually changwat Statistical Report. In 1997 about 60 microcomputers were distributed to many provincial offices in order to data keying the 1996 Industrial census. And in the year of 2000 about 500 microcomputers will be distributed to all provincials offices and Bangkok in order to process the census data.

With the experience gained from manual editing and data keying the Industrial census questionnaire which much more complicate than the census questionnaire, the provincial statistical offices personals can be able to process the census data with less problem.

After the census these microcomputers besides using to process the other surveys, they can be used on the administrative work, internet, disseminating of the data and producing the report.

The reason that NSO dose not choose OMR or OCR because we do not have any experience on either deciding and printing the questionnaire form. The cost of printing the questionnaire form will be higher since it requires more pages and good quality paper. Neither any of our officers are familiar with the different style of questionnaire which might cause more error. It is then a risk to use OMR or OCR for the first time on a large project as census.

1. Preliminary report which shows the total number of population by sex and household by provinces, region and whole kingdom.
2. Advance report, which shows important population characteristics by region and whole kingdom.
3. Reports on population and housing data by provinces, regions and the whole kingdom
4. Series of analytical subject reports from a 1.2 percent sample tabulation on selected characteristics such as, migration, fertility and economic characteristics.
5. Some important data in the table form will be available in the internet.
6. The more detail information of both population and housing characteristic in    the table form will also be available in the floppy disk or CD ROM.

The database is set up to collect information of census and survey projects of NSO and other government agencies. The information is organized in form of relational database structure.

The information that can be retrieved from the database are,

1. Social information e.g. population census, labor force, education, public health and village information.
2. Economic information e.g. business, industrial, and agriculture census.

At present the statistical information are much needed not only from the government sector, but from the private sector as well. NSO has set up a statistical information searching system, that any user can search through the information from the microcomputer at the Information Dissemination Division in Bangkok.

The information that are now available.

1. The name of all censuses and surveys that has been conducted by NSO. their background, the numbers and years of publication, the recent publications, and some interesting data of some surveys in the table form from the past to present.
2. The name of the recent statistical publication from other government agencies and other government enterprises complete with the year published the address and the telephone number of these agencies.

In Thailand, Internet technology is playing an important role in the growing of information technology. Although the internet is formerly used among researchers and academic bodies, currently an internet accessibility is fully commercialized. Consequently, the internet will become and important electronic media in an information system and tele-communication. 

National Statistical office Thailand has foreseen an important role of the internet. Its utilization has strong impact on promoting an information technology. Consequently, the National Statistical Office has set up a project to deal with the internet technology in a statistical system. The goal of the project is to establish a statistical information system base on a computer backbone network which is connected to the internet.

The National Statistical Office will become an internet node the fully connected to the internet backbone. Any users on the Internet will be able to communicate to the National Statistical Office network's users. The design of the National Statistical Office network focuses on integrating an existing computer system with the network backbone. 

Provincial statistical office located in every provinces are able to connected to the host computer at the National Statistical Office via the internet. By this is meant to reduce the cost of remote dial-up line connection via the telephone network. All computers in the head office have direct connection via the internet gateway.

In a Statistical system of the National Statistical Office, utilization of internet services are discussed according the type services.

E-mail can be used as a means to communicate between the head and the local branch offices, as well as people outside the National Statistical Office. Statistical users might use E-mail to inquire information from the National Statistical Office. Moreover, most specialists and experts in various subjects can be conveniently reached through E-mail.  E-mail, to a certain extent, may well replace a telephone, fax or post-mail. E-mail has advantage on rapidity, paperless and low cost for long distance communication.

FTP is a way to move files from one computer to another via network. FTP can be used to transfer files from local branch office to the head office or vice versa. Statistical data produced by other statistical agencies can be electronically collected through network by using FTP. Exchange of data among agencies can be easily established. Moreover, there exists a huge collection of software utilities scattered in the Internet. EDP staff certainly gains benefit of those software. FTP has advantage on simple and quick.

WWW can be applied to the National Statistical Office in two aspects. From an information user's point of view, we can use WWW as a source of knowledge in which on-line searching is available. From an information provider's point of view, we can build a WWW to electronically disseminate statistical information. Any users may retrieve statistical data on-line through the Internet. Off-line WWW prototype has shown very positive results. Moreover, WWW can be used as an on-line electronic publishing. This might be an alternative for publishing and presentation works for statistics.

Usenet Newsgroup is an excellent place to meet people in the Internet. We can select appropriate newsgroups that are allow us to meet, discuss and exchange opinion relating to topics of interests. Usenet is the best way to meet experts and specialists in all subject domains, in particular, research and academic domain. 

There are benefits of using the Internet in an organization. The Internet is easy to use from its user-friend interface. The Internet can connect users worldwide with no limit of distance. It is fast communication at very low cost. Moreover, applications on internet is easy to develop and maintenance. Free software and utilities are on-line available. These advantages, so far, have shown that the Internet will be a global communication among human being. At the point, statistical agencies should be statistical information providers on the Internet.

There are benefits of using the internet, specially when the data base system, and the statistical information searching system and other information that we have planned are connected to the internet. NSO will be one of the statistical information providers on the internet.