| The Fourth Meeting of the
Working Party on the Application of New Technology
to Population Data |
| Manila, 6-9 July 1999
|
| |
STAT/WPA(4)/Rep
26 July 1999
ENGLISH ONLY
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE
PACIFIC
Working Party on the Application of New Technology
to Population Data
Fourth meeting
6-9 July 1999
Manila |
| Report of the fourth
meeting of the Working Party on the Application
of New Technology to Population data |
| Contents |
- Abbreviations
- Organization
of the meeting
- Attendance
- Opening
of the Meeting
- Election
of officers
- Adoption
of the agenda
- Documentation
- Mapping
and related technologies
- Review
of draft guidelines
- Review
of reports on pilot applications
- Preparations
for the Workshop on the Application of Information
Technology to Population Data
- Future
programme of work
- Other
matters
- Adoption
of the report
- Annex:
List of documents
|
|
| ABBREVIATIONS
|
| CAPI |
Computer Assisted Personal
Interviewing |
| CARS |
Classifications and
Related Systems. |
| CATI |
Computer Assisted Telephone
Interviewing |
| EA |
Enumeration Area |
| GIS |
Geographic Information
System |
| GPS |
Global Positioning System |
| HTML |
HyperText Markup Language |
| IT |
Information Technology |
| LAN |
Local Area Network |
| OCR |
Optical Character Recognition |
| OMR |
Optical Mark Recognition/Reader |
| PC |
Personal Computer |
|
| I.
ORGANIZATION OF THE MEETING |
|
| A.
Attendance |
| 1. The fourth meeting of the
Working Party of the Application of New Technology
to Population Data was organized by the secretariat
of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission
for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Manila from
6 to 9 July 1999, for which the National Statistics
Office of the Philippines provided host facilities.
The meeting funded by the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA), under the project RAS/96/P12,
was attended by experts from all the nine members
of the Working Party: Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Japan, Macau, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore
and Thailand. Participants from the Statistical
Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), UNFPA
Country Support Team for Central and South Asia,
as well as observers from UNFPA (Manila), government
and the private sector attended. The list
of participants has been issued as a separate
document. |
|
| B.
Opening of the Meeting |
| 2. The meeting was opened by
Mr Tomas P. Africa, the Administrator of the National
Statistics Office, the Philippines. In his welcoming
speech, Mr Africa noted that the last three meetings
of the Working Party had been very successful
and productive. He mentioned that the main
focus of the Manila meeting was on mapping and
related technologies. The Administrator
thanked all governmental and the private sector
organizations in extending their cooperation in
preparing for and organizing the meeting, including
Bayan Map, Kodak Philippines, Unisys and the National
Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA),
whose representatives made interesting presentations
to the meeting. |
| 3. Mr M. Khalid Siddiqui, Chief
of the Statistics Development Section, Statistics
Division of ESCAP, thanked the Government of the
Philippines, in particular the National Statistics
Office, for the arrangements of the meeting.
He also thanked UNFPA for its financial support
to the project RAS/96/P12. He noted
that within the next six months, the Working Party
had to accomplish the task of consolidating experiences
of IT application to population data in order
to share them with other countries in the region. |
|
| C.
Election of officers |
| 4. Mr Tomas P. Africa (Philippines)
was elected as Chairperson of the meeting,
and Mr David Archer (New Zealand) as the Vice-Chairperson. |
|
| D.
Adoption of the agenda |
| 5. The Meeting adopted the following
agenda: |
- Opening of the meeting.
- Election of officers.
- Adoption of the agenda.
- Mapping and related
technologies.
- Review of draft guidelines:
- Guidelines on the application
of new information technology to populationdata
dissemination.
- Guidelines on the application
of modern mapping and GIS technologies
incensus operations.
- Guidelines on the application
of new technology to population data collectionand
capture.
- Review of reports on
pilot applications:
- Uses of GPS for preparation
of census enumeration area maps - BangladeshBureau
of Statistics.
- Imaging technology
- Central Bureau of Statistics of Indonesia.
- Uses of GIS for census
operations and dissemination - Philippines
NationalStatistics Office
- Preparations for the
Workshop on the application of Information
Technologyto Population Data
- Adoption of major recommendations.
- Future programme of
work.
- Other matters.
|
|
| E.
Documentation |
| 6. The documents presented at
the Meeting are listed in the Annex to the report. |
| 7. At the conclusion of the
Meeting, the participants expressed their deep
gratitude to Administrator Africa and his staff
for the excellent meeting arrangements and facilities
provided during the meeting. The meeting
also acknowledged with thanks the contributions
made through presentations at the meeting by Bayan
Map, Kodak Philippines, NAMRIA and Unisys. |
|
| II.
MAPPING AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES |
| 8. The Working Party reviewed
the status of mapping and related technologies
on the basis of papers presented by Working Party
members as follows: (1) Application of GIS use
in the Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs
Survey: A Case Study (STAT/WPA(4)/1/Australia);
(2) GIS for the Integration of Social and Economic
Statistics, its Benefits and Limitations (STAT/WPA(4)/1/Australia(A));
(3) Use of GIS for Census Mapping in Japan (STAT/WPA(4)/1/Japan);
(4) Mapping and Related technologies in Macau
(STAT/WPA(4)/1/Macau); (5) Mapping and Related
Technologies in New Zealand (STAT/WPA(4)/1/New
Zealand); (6) Recent Developments in Mapping Technologies
and GIS in the Philippines: NAMRIA and its
Role in Census Mapping (STAT/WPA(4)/1/Philippines);
and (7) Map for Census and Survey (STAT/WPA(4)/1/Thailand). |
| 9. It noted that the countries
were in various stages of development of digital
maps for census purposes and development of GIS
applications. Australia, New Zealand
and Japan had fully digitized maps covering the
entire country that included boundaries of the
smallest levels of administrative areas.
The digitized maps included coordinates of the
boundaries of the smallest levels of administrative
areas which enabled the dissemination of small
area statistics. In Australia, for example,
GIS and spatial analysis had been used to support
the development of a survey frame for a housing
needs survey for the indigenous community. |
| 10. On the other hand, Bangladesh,
Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Macau were
just beginning to transform their paper and other
maps into digital formats in preparation for the
2000 round of population censuses.
The extent of the commitment of the national statistics
offices in those countries varied and it was reflected
in the resources and the type of technology being
adopted to produce the desired digital maps.
Bangladesh had opted for the use of aerial photos
and the use of GPS for producing fairly accurate
base maps. Philippines, on the other hand,
had done manual digitization of maps used in the
previous census and used shareware programs to
develop a GIS system for census monitoring and
data dissemination purposes. The development
of that system was being done under the current
pilot project and demonstrated the use of new
technologies for census purposes. |
| 11. The Working Party agreed
that the statistical offices were not the major
mapping agencies in the countries and therefore
did not have primary responsibility to produce
digital maps. However, the use of
maps for statistical purposes made it necessary
for the statistical offices to play an active
role in coordinating efforts to produce digitized
maps where they were not available. The
meeting noted that Bangladesh Bureau of
Statistics, through its project, had in fact been
instrumental in bringing together the major agencies
of the government to coordinate efforts to produce
maps in digital formats and to use the same for
GIS applications. |
|
| III.
REVIEW OF DRAFT GUIDELINES |
| 12. The Working Party reviewed
the status of the three guidelines that were being
prepared under the project on the basis of documents
STAT/WPA(4)/2 (Guidelines on the application of
new information technology to population data
collection and capture), STAT/WPA(4)/3 (Guidelines
on the application of modern mapping and GIS technologies
in census operations), and STAT/WPA(4)/4 (Guidelines
on the application of new information technology
to population data dissemination), presented by
the coordinators of each guideline. It noted
that documents STAT/WPA(4)/2.1 and STAT/WPA(4)/2.2,
representing contributions by Japan and Australia
respectively, had been incorporated in document
STAT/WPA(4)/2. It also had available a document
on Imaging technology work flows (STAT/WPA(4)/2.3,
prepared by Statistics New Zealand. |
| 13. The Working Party emphasized
the importance of having all guidelines in their
final draft formats before the Workshop, which
was to be held in October 1999 (see section V
of this report). It noted that the
Workshop would be used as test audience for the
guidelines and that they were likely to require
some level of editing after the Workshop. |
| 14. The Working Party urged
all members to provide subsequent comments on
the guidelines on a priority basis as would be
requested by the coordinators. So far, only
some members had been active in that regard. |
| 15. The Working Party agreed
that it was not in a position to recommend any
of the covered technologies prescriptively or
to endorse any particular brand name. It
accepted that the guidelines would not be official
United Nations publications, and that they would
still be subjected to the standard United Nations
disclaimers. |
| 16. The Working Party confirmed
that the content requirements that had been set
for the guidelines in the previous meeting were
still valid. The guidelines should |
- be restricted to new technology,
have a sharp focus, and generally not go beyond
the point where a particular technology ceases
to have an impact;
- have a preambular section
that specifies their scope, context and intended
audience, underlying philosophy and principles,
and provide the minimum necessary background
information;
- draw from best practices
found useful in applying information technology
in NSOs;
- help NSOs, particularly
in developing countries, to apply the latest
feasible information technology rather than
be driven by the information technology per
se;
- contain a glossary of technical
terms and acronyms, and a disclaimer on the
scope (e.g. intended/selected comprehensiveness);
technology sections of all three guidelines
should explain concepts necessary to understand
the technology and the objectives of applying
it;
- cover requirements for
planning and training to put the technology
in place and maintain it; cover also issues
related to daily operation and management.
|
| 17. The Working Party also confirmed
that the guidelines needed to contain advice for
estimating total costs involved in applying the
technology. It acknowledged, however,
that it was difficult in some cases to indicate
exact monetary costs for applications, especially
if they had been developed over a period of time
in-house involving an institutional learning process.
In such cases, more descriptive information and
comparisons to previous systems would help to
understand economic consequences of a particular
technology selection or development. The
Working Party recommended to include in the guidelines,
wherever applicable, alternative ways of acquiring
cited technologies, including the use of public
domain software, purchase and leasing of equipment
and software, in-house development, and partial
or full outsourcing of related tasks. |
| 18. The review of the guidelines
prompted a discussion among the Working Party
about the definition of new technology and the
comprehensiveness the coverage of technology
that should be attempted in the guidelines.
The Working Party had from the beginning restricted
its work to new and emerging technologies, which,
if strictly interpreted could rule out conventional
technologies, such as OMR and keyboard data entry,
from the guidelines. On the other
hand, the Working Party recognized that statistical
offices in developing countries needed a comprehensive
framework that allowed them to evaluate available
technology options. It was simply not feasible
for many of them to adopt the latest technologies
because of the costs and training requirements
involved. For instance, the Central Asian
Republics were conducting their first censuses
and generally relied on manual data entry methods. |
| 19. In view of the limited time
available and the resource constraints that made
the production of comprehensive technology manuals
impossible, the Working Party adopted a pragmatic
approach that allowed the work on the guidelines
to proceed along the outlines agreed previously.
Apart from the latest innovations, the focus was
also on the new uses of information technology.
The Working Party emphasized that the introduction
sections of the guidelines needed to give an overview
of the available technologies and methods of achieving
the same end results, and indicate the limitations
of the guidelines. The advantages and disadvantages
of each new technology or application would need
to be presented objectively and by way of comparison
to conventional technologies and methods.
The Working Party recommended to include, either
in the beginning or at the end, a summary of important
general issues related to selection, acquisition
and management of the technologies in each guideline
domain. It also recommended to include in
each guideline an annex of references to selected
literature and web sites. |
| 20. The Working Party recommended
the authors of inputs, the coordinators and editors
to use business needs as a reality check to come
up with a right level of language, and the order
and emphasis of issues. In other words,
the guidelines ultimately needed to support the
accomplishment of tasks related to census and
survey taking and processing. |
| 21. The Working Party requested
the coordinators to edit the guidelines so that
they were internally consistent and fluent to
read. That was particularly relevant
to guidelines consisting of contributions by many
authors. After that editing, the guidelines
could be sent to the Working Party members for
further comments. |
| 22. In addition, the Working
Party made the following detailed recommendations
regarding the case studies or particular technologies
reflected in the guidelines. The case studies
should |
- have descriptive titles
for the case studies and indicate the location
of quoted implementation;
- be included in the table
of contents;
- indicate the development
approach (in-house development, off-the-shelf
commercial product, public domain software,
etc), and include information about the transferability
of application;
- include the names
and contact information of the developer or
vendor; include also user organizations and
representatives, if applicable;
- include information about
the price, development cost, implementation
cost, and the cost of operation, as applicable,
and the period or point of time referred to;
- include information about
the operating environments of the applications
(hardware, operating system, software requirements);
- obtain clearance from respective
vendors or developers for publishing material
in the guidelines;
- follow the general layout
used in the guidelines that were coordinated
by New Zealand, with the paragraph "headings"
containing a message.
|
| 23. The Working Party made the
following specific observations and recommendations
on the three guidelines: |
| Guidelines
on the application of new technology to population
data collection and capture (Coordinator:
Indonesia) |
| 24. Current status: |
| The guideline was at an intermediate
stage where the coordinator had followed the outline
agreed upon in the previous meeting and produced
an introductory section and appended inputs from
Singapore (on CATI), Japan (OMR) and Australia
(coding). Sections on Internet data collection,
CAPI, and OCR were still pending. Statistics
New Zealand presented in the Meeting a paper on
imaging work flows that would be incorporated
to the guideline. The coordinator was being
assisted by a consultant who was available for
another two months. |
| 25. Contributions from members: |
- the Working Party recommended
the coordinator to adapt the text for the
section on Internet data collection from a
paper that Singapore had presented in the
second meeting of the Working Party.
The representative of Singapore agreed to
provide comments on the section and its integration
to the rest of the paper once it had been
incorporated by the consultant.
- In line with its previous
commitments, Australia agreed to contribute
the section on CAPI practices by 9 August
1999. It also agreed to provide the
coordinator with a 1-2 page input describing
the ABS experience in using CATI in retail
sector surveys.
- Philippines agreed to provide
by 9 August 1999 an input on experiences in
adopting hand held computers in survey data
collection, to be incorporated in the CAPI
section.
- The OMR/OCR section would
be expanded to cover ICR, on which Thailand
agreed to provide an input based on the selection
of the technology for its year 2000 census.
- Australia agreed to review
the section on autocoding with a view of bringing
the text closer to the level of expression
used elsewhere in the guidelines.
|
| Guidelines on the application
of modern mapping and GIS technologies in census
operations |
| 26. Current status: |
| The Working Party noted
that the work had not progressed beyond the detailed
outline presented by the coordinator. |
| 27. Plan to expedite the work |
| The Working party noted that
the United Nations Statistics Division had already
prepared a draft "Handbook on GIS and digital
mapping for population and housing censuses" containing
detailed technical information. It also
noted that the guidelines, as proposed under project
RAS/96/P12 would be based on country experiences,
including the pilot studies, and recommended that
every effort be made to avoid the duplication
of work. Recognizing that some overlap between
the two publications was unavoidable, the Working
Party recommended that the guidelines should refer
to the Handbook in general and in relevant individual
sections. The Working Party felt that the
guidelines should be useful to at least three
groups of countries: (i) where NSOs relied
on another agencies for their mapping and GIS
needs; (ii) where NSOs, by choice or otherwise,
had to engage in mapping and GIS operations to
meet their needs; and (iii) where outsourcing
was the major option. The Working Party
agreed on the following revised outline: |
- Preamble
- Need for mapping
and GIS in censuses and surveys
- Selected country
experiences
- Alternative approaches
(to the previous)
- The use of GPS in
digital mapping and GIS
- Use of GIS in census
operations and dissemination
- Concluding remarks
- Annex: Country reports
|
| 28. The coordinator agreed to
circulate the first draft for comments by the
middle of August. He requested the members
of the Working Party to send short country experiences
for inclusion in the guidelines. The Working
Party noted that some of the papers presented
to its meetings, including those by Indonesia
and Australia, provided material that could be
incorporated in the guidelines. |
| Guidelines on the application
of new information technology to population data
dissemination |
| 29. Current status: |
| The first draft of the guideline
had been circulated for comments in May, and it
had been revised once based on the comments received
from the Working Party members. The Working Party
expressed satisfaction about the progress achieved,
and commended the layout used in the guidelines. |
| 30. Further work |
| The Working Party requested
the coordinator to incorporate the above general
points in the guidelines. It recommended |
- to add a few case studies
on public domain software. The United
Nations Statistics Division Web site was mentioned
as one source for such information.
- to add a case study on
CARS, which was a software for maintaining
metadata on statistical classifications and
standards.
|
|
| IV.
REVIEW OF REPORTS ON PILOT APPLICATIONS |
|
| 31. The Working Party reviewed
the progress made on the three pilot applications.
It discussed and made recommendations on the formats,
likely contents and completion schedule of the
reports of the pilot projects. |
| Uses of GPS for preparation
of census enumeration area maps - Bangladesh Bureau
of Statistics |
| 32. Since the last progress
report presented to the third meeting of the Working
Party, four additional pretests were done for
producing EA maps using GPS and the aerial photography.
The outputs included orthophotomaps, non-orhthophotomaps
and traditional maps. The experience suggested
that the shadows caused by high rise buildings
and trees sometimes blocked the coverage of houses.
Problems were also encountered due to the unavailability
of suitable interface software for converting
scanned images to vector format necessary for
GIS. The problem was resolved by adopting
the manual adjustment approach and screen digitization. |
| 33. The Working Party was informed
that the pilot study was well on schedule and
that the report could be finished within 6 weeks
after the administrative arrangements for the
provision of funds were concluded with the secretariat.
A meeting of the technical committee of
the pilot project was scheduled to be held in
September 1999. |
| Imaging technology - Statistics
Indonesia. |
| 34. The Working Party was informed
that the steps of developing the pilot system,
form design and printing, memory design, management
and training were successfully completed. The
only activities remaining for the completion of
the pilot project were the wind up procedures
and report writing, which were scheduled to be
completed by 9 September 1999. |
| 35. The Working Party observed
that the initial (numeric) character recognition
rates appeared to be low compared to the rates
achieved in New Zealand and Australia, and discussed
possible reasons for that difference. One
probable cause was that the recognition software
was not optimized for the Indonesian way of writing
numbers. The Working Party noted that the
capture rates for the alpha and numeric characters
varied and that by introducing as many as possible
OMR type questions it was possible to achieve
rates higher than 95 per cent. The technology
was also moving very fast and that the situation
had improved considerably during the past two
years with the availability of new and improved
software. The Working Party noted that the
experience gained in the pilot had provided guidance
to the census planning and the application of
new technology to census data processing in Thailand. |
| Uses of GIS for census
operations and dissemination - Philippines National
Statistics Office |
| 36. The working Party heard
that the pilot application for tracking census
operations was part of the Quick Count System
being developed for the Philippines Census 2000.
It noted that by using a combination of non-commercial
software, the application provided a web-based
tracking system to monitor a number of critical
indicators and statistics for census operations,
dynamically generate thematic maps, and allow
users to query. The tasks remaining under
the pilot application included the continuation
of system development of a prototype and report
writing, which were expected to be completed by
September 1999. |
| 37. The Working Party noted
that the approach adopted under the pilot application
enabled the use of existing resources and provided
opportunities to upgrade the skills of the staff,
such as on Web development and system development.
That would also benefit the operations of the
Census 2000 and other collections, especially
data dissemination. |
| Recommendations on pilot
applications |
| 38. The Working Party expressed
its satisfaction on the progress made on the three
pilot studies and stressed that their reports
be completed before the end of September 1999.
However, to receive comments from the members
of the Working Party, the draft manuscript should
be circulated via e-mail by 15 September 1999. |
| 39. In discussing the formats
of the reports of the pilot projects, the Working
Party recommended that each report should include
the statement of the problem, situate the problem
within the main activity that it was part of,
place the problem in the sequence of events, provide
details on the approach and methodology adopted,
describe the experience, describe measures adopted
for solving the problems that were encountered,
and report on lessons learned. It was informed
that in each pilot project document the deliverable
outputs were identified and that the recommended
common features of the report format were consistent
with them. |
| 40. The Working Party recommended
that to the extent possible, the experience of
the pilot projects be incorporated into the guidelines
to be produced under its guidance. |
| 41. Concerning the pilot study
on Uses of GPS for preparation of census enumeration
area maps, the Working Party emphasized that
all administrative matters for the provision of
funds to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics should
be immediately concluded. |
|
| V.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE WORKSHOP ON THE APPLICATION
OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO POPULATION DATA |
|
| 42. The Working Party
had before it document STAT/WPA(4)/9, "Preparations
for the workshop on the application of information
technology to population data", which contained
records of its preliminary discussions in Bali
and an indicative outline for the Workshop. |
| 43. The Working Party
decided that the Workshop should utilize papers
produced for the Working Party meetings, experiences
collected in the three pilot applications developed,
and the three guidelines as core material for
the Workshop. To make a distinction
that the Workshop had a limited scope as opposed
to general IT training, the Working Party decided
to name it as "Workshop on application of new
information technology to population data".
Notwithstanding, the Working Party agreed that
it was paramount to include in the Workshop sections
that facilitated the understanding of the overall
role of new technology in conducting censuses
and surveys. |
| 44. The Working Party
confirmed that the broad objective for the Workshop
was to sensitize participants to seize of the
opportunities that modern information technology
provided in population data operations.
It confirmed that the Workshop also provided an
opportunity to improve the guidelines that would
have been produced by then under the project.
For the participants, the Workshop would provide
information that improved their basic understanding
of new technologies relevant to population censuses
and surveys (awareness training). They would
also learn the advantages and constraints of important
new information technologies (technology training),
as well as strategic implications that IT would
have on the planning and conduct of population
censuses and surveys (management training). |
| 45. The Working Party
confirmed that the target audience of the Workshop
should be IT and statistical managers who had
influence on the selection of technologies for
census and survey operations. The
participants needed to have a basic understanding
of IT so that they could absorb information about
latest technologies. The Working Party
discussed ways to make sure that governments nominated
participants with relevant backgrounds and knowledge;
it also discussed how increased female participation
could be encouraged. It agreed that the
secretariat had limited direct influence on the
process of nomination of workshop participants,
and insufficient resources for extensive correspondence
and administrative scrutiny, and recommended the
secretariat draft the invitations carefully, taking
into account above points. |
| 46. The Working Party
added Maldives, Samoa and Sri Lanka to the list
of participating countries contained in document
STAT/WPA(4)/8. |
| 47. The Working Party
decided on the outline for the Workshop and appointed
organizers and allocated time for each module
as follows: |
|
| Workshop on application
of new information technology to population data
|
| Item |
Duration |
Organizer |
| 1. INTRODUCTION |
½ day |
ESCAP |
- Project,
Working Party and their outputs
- IT trends and their
impact
- IT management challenges
- Results of ESCAP
Survey
- Expectations for
the year 2000 round of censuses
|
|
|
| 2. PAPER BASED
DATA COLLECTION AND CAPTURE |
1 ½ days |
Indonesia*
and Japan |
- Manual data
capture techniques and software
- OMR
- OCR/ICR
- Workflow management
and quality control
|
|
|
| 3. NON-PAPER BASED DATA
COLLECTION AND CAPTURE |
1 ½ days |
Singapore*
and Australia |
- CATI
- CAPI
- Data collection
through the Internet
|
|
|
| 4. DATABASES IN POPULATION
DATA OPERATIONS |
½ day |
ESCAP |
| 5. DATA DISSEMINATION |
1 ½ days |
New Zealand |
- Electronic dissemination
- On-demand tabulation
- Warehousing and
time series
- Hard copy
|
|
|
| 6. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
SYSTEMS |
1 day |
Bangladesh |
- Enumeration area
maps
- Operations monitoring
- GIS based dissemination
|
|
|
|
|
*
Lead organizer
1)
Module 4 is not in the Working Party's domain
but is included due to the central role of databases
affecting most of the census/survey operations.
The item will be handled by external resource
persons, through demonstrations or other means.
|
| 48. The Working Party
requested the organizers to make detailed outlines
and suggest the mode of instruction and resource
persons for each session by 2 August 1999.
The Working Party agreed that the mode of instruction
depended largely on the topic and the availability
of resource persons and materials. The organizers
were asked to review if it was feasible to request
participants to prepare case studies or other
materials beforehand. The Working Party
also asked the organizers to consider the suitability
of group discussions, hands-on work and plenary-type
of situations for individual sessions. |
| 49. The Working Party
requested the secretariat to make sure that all
resource persons had during the course of their
preparations an opportunity to review the results
of the Survey that had been conducted under the
project. It requested the resource persons
to make their supporting materials available to
the secretariat prior to the Workshop. It
agreed that all workshop materials should be made
available for participants in hard and soft copies
during the Workshop. |
| 50. The Working party
requested the secretariat to nominate a workshop
director who would coordinate the planning and
implementation of the Workshop with the organizers
and resource persons. |
| 51. The Working Party
agreed that some sessions could benefit from relevant
product demonstrations and asked members to extend
their expertise to assist the organizers and the
secretariat in proposing and choosing the candidates
for them. It also agreed that module 4,
which was outside the Working Party's focus but
which was central to all census and survey operations,
could be covered or supplemented by invited private
sector presentation(s). |
|
VI.
FUTURE PROGRAMME OF WORK
Project RAS/96/P12 |
|
| 52. For discussions under
agenda item 9, the Working Party had available
document STAT/WPA(4)/9 prepared by the secretariat.
It reviewed the activities and output and made
suggestion for the future programme of work.
In discussing the dissemination of information
based on the products of the project RAS/96/P12,
the Working Party recommended that only one CD-ROM
be produced by ESCAP to disseminate all the outputs,
including guidelines, experiences of the pilots
and the awareness package. It also made
several suggestion for improving the website of
the project, which already contained valuable
information. Some of the documents available
on the website would remain valid for a longer
duration and thus should be retained while others
of working nature should be removed as and when
they become redundant or invalid. The links
to other useful websites could be expanded with
help from the members of the Working Party.
The links to commercial websites should generally
be restricted to those appearing in the Working
Party documents. |
| 53. The Working Party
adopted the following future programme of work: |
|
Activity/Output |
Organizer/
coordinator |
Remarks |
| Preparatory meeting on
the workshop management, Bangkok, 11 October
1999. |
ESCAP |
One-day meeting before
the workshop to make final arrangements
on the organization of the workshop. |
| Workshop on applications
of new information technology to population
data, Bangkok, 12-20 October 1999. |
ESCAP |
The project will support
the participation of selected developing
countries, the members of the Working Party
and resource persons/ consultants.
Other countries will be invited to attend
at their own expense. |
| Fifth meeting of the Working
Party, Bangkok, 21 October 1999. |
ESCAP |
One-day meeting to evaluate
experience at the workshop with the use
of the guidelines, to discuss and adopt
strategies for completing unfinished work
and evaluating outputs completed under the
project. |
| Newsletter of application
of information technology to population
data, issue 4, August 1999. |
ESCAP |
Focusing on the experiences
of three pilot countries. |
| Newsletter of application
of information technology to population
data, issue 5, November 1999. |
ESCAP |
Report on the workshop
and the three guidelines. |
Updating of the project
website: http://www.unescap.org/
stat/pop-it/ |
ESCAP |
The website will be updated
regularly until the end of the project;
eliminating redundant and outdated information.
Subsequent maintenance will depend on the
availability of resources. An attempt
to incorporate links to relevant websites
will be made for which Bangladesh, New Zealand
and other members will provide inputs.
Links to commercial sites will be restricted
to those mentioned in |
| Awareness package and
CD-ROM on the outputs of the Project RAS/96/P12. |
ESCAP/SIAP |
The details of the proposed
content will be mailed to the Working Party
members before 1 August 1999 for modification
and approval. The final package would
be made available before the start of the
workshop. It will be mailed to NSOs,
and presented to the ESCAP Working Group
of Statistical Experts in November 1999.
A CD-ROM will be produced by ESCAP to disseminate
all the outputs of the Working Party as
well the awareness package. |
| Report on the pilot application
on the use of GPS for preparation of census
enumeration area maps. Fourth quarter
of 1999. |
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics |
The Working Party was
informed that the pilot study was well on
schedule and that the report could be finished
within 6 weeks after the administrative
arrangements for the provision of funds
are concluded with the Secretariat.
A meeting of the Technical Committee of
the pilot project was scheduled to be held
in September 1999. |
| Report on the pilot application
on imaging technology. Fourth quarter
of 1999. |
Statistics Indonesia |
The only activities remaining
for the completion of the pilot project
are to wind up procedures and report writing,
which are schedules to be completed by 9
September 1999. |
| Report on the pilot application
on the use of GIS for census operations
and dissemination. Fourth quarter
of 1999. |
Philippines National Statistics Office |
The tasks remaining under
the application included the system development
of a prototype and report writing, which
are expected to be completed by September
1999. |
| Guidelines on the application
of new technology to population data collection
and capture (Final manuscript for publication
ready by 15 December 1999). |
Statistics Indonesia |
The first working draft
will be ready by September 1999 for use
in the workshop. The draft manuscripts
will be circulated via e-mail by 30 August
1999. |
| Guidelines on the application
of modern mapping and GIS technologies in
census operations (Final manuscript for
publication ready by 15 December 1999). |
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics |
The first working draft
will be ready by September 1999 for use
in the workshop. The draft manuscripts
will be circulated via e-mail by 30 August
1999. |
| Guidelines on the application
of new technology to population data dissemination
(Final manuscript for publication ready
by 15 December 1999). |
Statistics New Zealand |
A draft has already been
circulated for comments. The first
working draft will be ready by September
1999 for use in the workshop. The
draft manuscripts will be circulated via
e-mail by 30 August 1999. |
|
|
| VII.
OTHER MATTERS |
|
| Awareness package on
the application of modern technology to population
data |
| 54. The Working party had before
it a note STAT/WPA(4)/10 by SIAP on the development
of an awareness package on the application of
modern technology to population data. The Statistical
Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) had
been designated to develop the package in close
cooperation with ESCAP and the members of the
Working Party. SIAP reported on the progress
and the proposed strategies and gave a short exposition
of the main points of the proposal. The Working
Party welcomed the principal ideas and gave some
additional comments and suggestions. |
| 55. The Working Party agreed
on the texts concerning the problem definition,
the objective and the target-group for the package
(respectively the points 4.i to 4.iii of the note).
The suggestion was made to add the point that
the decision-makers had to be aware of the fast
moving techniques and should take measures to
stay up-to-date. |
| 56. The Working Party decided
that the package would get the form of a multimedia-presentation
which could be disseminated via Internet, video
tape, CD-ROM or diskette. The three guidelines
might, after their completion, be transferred
(in HTML- or PDF-format) to a CD-ROM, with inclusion
of navigation-functions for a better readability.
Further extension and updates of a documentation-set
on CD-ROM had to be envisaged. The Working Party
members would give their advice on the necessity
of a brief awareness brochure after the acceptance
of the draft of the electronic version. |
| 57. The broad outline of the
package, as displayed in document STAT/WPA(4)/10,
was also accepted by the Working Party.
The intention was to give a global overview of
emerging technologies that could be used in census
operations and to illustrate these with a selection
of the pilot projects of the countries of the
Working Party members. |
| 58. As a last point, the planning
and dissemination of the awareness package were
discussed by the Working Party. The
details of the proposed content will be mailed
to the Working Party members before 1 August 1999
for modification and approval. The final
awareness package would be made available before
the start of the Workshop. The Working Party
members gave further useful suggestions for dissemination
and promotion of the package. Amongst those
were the citation in the project newsletter, mailing
to the statistical offices and presentation of
the material in the ESCAP Working Group of Statistical
Experts in November 1999. |
| 59. The Working Party recommended
that only one CD-ROM presentation be released
by the ESCAP secretariat, containing the various
outputs of the project, such as guidelines, and
the awareness package prepared by SIAP. |
|
| VIII.
ADOPTION OF THE REPORT |
| 60. The Working Party adopted
its report-consisting of major conclusions, recommendations
and the summary of discussions - on 8 July 1999.
It authorized the secretariat to include amendments
proposed during adoption and other editional changes
as deemed necessary. |
|
| Annex
|
| LIST OF DOCUMENTS |
|
