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

1. Introduction
2. OMR/OCR Study
3. Population Data in CD-ROM
4. Designing and Standardization Population Pages on Internet

In responding to Item 7 of the provisional agenda, i.e., the implementation of three separate IT applications for population data, CBS, in this paper, will propose-three alternative applications in the area of data capture and data dissemination including GIS.  Data scrutinizing, coding and editing is not involved in the proposal since statistical offices have experienced a lot with this works. Besides, there are a number of public domain softwares such as IMPS and ISSA to support data processing. On the other hand, OMR/OCR technology is new for many countries including Indonesia and should be explored extensively especially in preparing for 2000 population census. In the following, the first alternative, i.e., OMR/OCR study will be explained more detail.

The second alternative is about data dissemination in the CD-ROM.  Since dissemination technologies are evolving very rapidly, NSO should be able to disseminate population data with software needed in the form of CD-ROM. Therefore, the second alternative, i.e., population on CD-ROM will be explained more detail.  The alternative will also try to see how far GIS capability can be involved in the system, so the user can produce thematic data using the CD-ROM.

The last alternative prosed is also in the area of dissemination.  Up to this moment, CBS has successfully disseminated various data including population data through Internet. The recording of the systems showed that there are 3514 hits to the home page (www.bps.go.id) every day.  This figure showed that the Internet facility should be explored for data dissemination intensively.  Therefore, the third alternative is about the designing and standardization of population pages on Internet.  The three alternatives are discuses more detail as follows.

The objective of tile study is to see how effective an OMR/OCR can be used in capturing population census data in markcodes as well as human writing.  A number of writing variations will be tried/ tested to see the percentage of success that can be handled by the system.  The result of this study will be very important in the massive procurement of such machines and their supporting facilities.  In addition, the study will help in designing questionnaires that meet the requirement of the system, so the optimal solution could be achieved.

This study can be beficial to other countries since they can participate in providing their questionnaires to be tested in the system.  Therefore, other countries will be invited to participate in filling the questionnaires with their common hand writing.  This gives them an idea whether to utilize OCR/ OMR systems for data capturing.

Since CBS as abandoned data capturing using OMR before, then the introduction of such technology in a new version should be taken in the very careful way.  Therefore, before massive sets are procured, one set of machines is being procured under the assistance of JICA. This system includes a set of scanner and a set of OCR/OMR software, in this case is NCS ACCRA.  By conducting such a study, then we will know the percentage of questionnaire errors, percentage of  hand writing error, and the speed of data-capturing process.  In addition, the right questionnaires that can meet the requirement of the systems can be designed.

Feasibility of the study will support the plan of establishing data capture in the regional offices from province level to the kabupaten level.  There are 311 kabupaten regional offices, and 27 Provincial regional offices, and for these offices and the central offices CBS needs to procure 531.

The study will be useful for CBS before they are procured massively throughout Indonesia, so the coming Population Census could be processed in a time frame as expected, that is, three months.  We will know how to design questionnaire correctly, the way handwriting should be, and to fill out questionnaires corrrectly.

In this application, the Working Party is expected to suggest the design of a questionnaire that will give optimally results in data capturing.  The suggestion includes the color of the printing, the characters that will result minimum errors, and other things related to questionnaire design.

The Working party is, also expected to participate in the scrutinizing the results of the capturing process, so they can suggest the best way in the capturing data.

As the technology of the CD-ROM is now very popular in the computer environment, population data is needed to be recorded in the CD-ROM.  However, a user of population data should not be expected to write a program in order to be able to access the data.  For that reason, the should be supported with an application that allow him to access population data easily in carious functions, for example forecasting data, CBR, CDR, etc.

This application of course, will be beneficial to other countries, since the application will be distributed freely.  The application will allow them to just procure a CD-ROM writer, and store their population data into CD-ROM accompanying with the application.

In this CD-ROM, GIS capability can also be stored to allow users to display data in the thematic maps.  Of course the possibility to store GIS such as PopMap will also be dependent on tile authorization from the UN.

CD-ROM has shown many superior capabilities compared with storage devices such diskettes.  In addition, users' computers are now usually equipped with CD-ROM readers.  CD-ROM also is free from the contamination of a virus, because it is write protection.  Hence, CD-ROM should be utilized in the population data.

This project is to try to develop an application that will be stored in a CD-ROM that enables a user to get population statistics, and demographic ratios, such as Crude Birth Rate, Crude Death Rate, etc., and also population projection.

This can be done by storing the application and data into CD-ROM.  A user just put the CD-ROM into CD Reader, then all processing will be guided by the applicatione to meet the need of the user.

This application will be beneficial to any user because he does not have to create software for accessing the data, and how to write programs to make population calculations such as projection.

The working party is expected to participate in seing the poos41lity of 1'opMap facilities can be stored in the CD-ROM for public use.  In addition, The working Party is expected to define what kind demographic calculations are really needed by most users.  Also to define what hind of displays, and how menus should be guided, and how they are guided one buy one.

It is very common now that many users use Internet to get information, including population information.  CBS has shown that its home pages are very intensively used by Information seeker around the world. For that reasons, CBS is utilizing the Internet intensively.  However, the space of the server to keep the information is very limited so information should be very selectively chosen.  The objective of the study into define what the information is really needed by the users.

The other objective of the study is to make standardization of population information that is needed to be disseminated by statistical offices around the world.  In the economic sector, there is a standard that has been introduced, called SDDS.  By having such standard format and type of information, a user is able to aggregate the information of several countries, and comparison can be made. In addition, link between home pages can be made.

The application is feasible to perform considering that CBS has already released its horse pages for almost two years now.  And designing home pages are not new for CBS, since the beginning the design of the pages is done CBS internally.

To support the pages in Internet, various of population information is available as a result of population census, Intercensal population census, and Demographic and Health Survey.

The Working Team is expected to support this application by defining standards for population data dissemination in Internet.  The Working party is also expected to promote the use of Internet to the countries that have not utilized Internet yet, so that joining/merging population data among NSOs can be performed in this application.