| I.
ORGANIZATION OF THE WORKSHOP |
| A.
Attendance |
| 1. The Workshop on Population
Data Analysis, Storage and Dissemination Technologies,
funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
under the project RAS/96/P12, was held in Bangkok
from 27-30 March 2001. It was organized
by the secretariat of the United Nations Economic
and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(ESCAP) with active support of the Working Party
on the Application of New Technology to Population
Data. |
| 2. The Workshop was attended
by 38 participants from 20 selected countries
in the Asian and Pacific region: Armenia, Bangladesh,
Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia,
Japan, Kiribati, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia,
Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines,
Republic of Korea, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand
and Viet Nam. |
| 3. The members of the Working
Party, consisting of nine experts from Australia;
Bangladesh; Indonesia; Japan; Macao, China; New
Zealand; Philippines; Singapore and Thailand;
and representatives of the Statistical Institute
for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), the UNFPA Country
Technical Services Team in Bangkok, the United
Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and the United
States Census Bureau (USCB) also participated
as resource persons. Invited private sector
companies also participated as observers and made
presentations. |
| 4. The list
of participants is attached as Annex I. |
| B.
Opening of the Workshop |
| 5. The Workshop was inaugurated
by Mr Kim Hak-Su, the Executive Secretary of ESCAP.
He welcomed the participants and thanked UNFPA
for funding the project, under which the Workshop
was organized. He noted with appreciation
that the collaboration between UNFPA and ESCAP
would continue with a number of multi-year projects
scheduled to start later in the year. |
| 6. Thanking the resource persons,
the Executive Secretary commended the role of
the members of the ESCAP Working Party on Application
of New Technology to Population Data in putting
together the programme for the Workshop, and in
delivering presentations and moderating discussions.
Mr Kim also expressed his appreciation to the
resource persons from the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, the United States Census Bureau, the
UNFPA Country Support Teams in Bangkok and Kathmandu,
the United Nations Statistics Division and the
Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific.
Finally, he thanked the representatives from the
private sector for their role in making demonstrations
of state-of-the-art software applications for
analysing and disseminating census data, which
was in accordance with the Secretary-General's
Guidelines on Collaboration between the United
Nations and the Business Community. |
| 7. Noting the general importance
of population censuses and surveys as a foundation
for socio-economic statistics and for timely and
targeted policy action by governments, the Executive
Secretary encouraged the participants to make
census data as easily available as possible to
the clients, which goal could not be achieved
without application of modern information technology. |
| 8. Outlining some changes that
the evolving information technology had caused
at ESCAP, the Executive Secretary indicated that
the main challenge for the secretariat was to
mainstream the response to the development challenge
created by information technology. The first
step taken was to ensure that ESCAP's programme
planning always incorporated IT considerations
when the technology could add value to the projects.
The Executive Secretary informed the Workshop
that larger programmes addressing sectoral and
national IT development goals had been initiated.
He also indicated that after the upcoming fifty-seventh
session of the Commission, the secretariat intended
to analyse whether any organizational adjustments
might be warranted in order to respond more effectively
to the challenges and opportunities that IT created
in the region, particularly at the policy level. |
| C.
Workshop arrangements |
| 9. The Workshop adopted the
following agenda: |
- Opening of the Workshop.
- Adoption of the agenda.
- Technological lessons
from the 2000 round census data collection.
- Data storage - from
inactive to dynamic.
- Latest innovations
in methods and tools for census data analysis.
- Translation of data
users' needs into dissemination strategies.
- Innovative technologies
for data dissemination.
- Other matters.
- Adoption of recommendations.
|
| 10. The Workshop noted that
the tentative time schedule (see Annex I) prepared
by the secretariat was based on the provisional
agenda, and agreed to proceed accordingly in five
sessions as follows: |
| Sessions |
Chair |
| 1. Introduction
to the project RAS/96/P12 (Item 2). |
ESCAP secretariat |
| 2. Technological
lessons from the 2000 round census data
collection (Item 3). |
Mr David
Archer and Ms Carmelita N Ericta |
3. Converging
data storage and data analysis
(Items 4 and 5). |
Ms Rosemary
Crocker |
| 4. Translation
of data users' needs into dissemination
strategies (Item 6). |
Mr Edward
Lim |
| 5. Innovative
technologies for data dissemination (Item
7). |
Mr Sihar
Lumtantobing and Mr David Archer |
|
| 11. The Workshop acknowledged
with thanks the following presentations and support
by private sector companies: |
| Topic |
Presenter |
| 5.3 Demonstration of
PC-Axis |
Mr Lars Nordbäck,
Statistics Sweden |
| 5.4 Demonstration of
Beyond 20/20 |
Mr Jean E Carr, Beyond
20/20 Inc. |
| 5.5 Demonstration of
SuperSTAR System |
Ms Ursula Hoult, Space-Time
Research |
|
| D.
Documentation |
| 12. The documents presented
and presentations made at the Workshop are listed
in Annex
III to the report. |
| E.
Participants' evaluation of the Workshop |
| 13. The evaluation questionnaire
of the Workshop was completed by 37 participants. |
| II.
INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT RAS/96/P12 |
| 14. On the basis of document
STAT/WDT/3, the secretariat made a brief introduction
to the project RAS/96/P12, "Application of New
Technology in Population Data Collection, Processing,
Dissemination and Presentation", and its outputs.
The document highlighted the significant role
that the ESCAP Working Party on the Application
of New Technology in Population Data had played
in the implementation of the project activities,
including the organization of two workshops and
four technical expert meetings. The Workshop noted
that the members had not only provided strategic
and pragmatic guidance, but also themselves produced
a large number of high-quality technical documents
and guidelines on using selected new technologies
in population census and survey operations. |
| 15. The Workshop noted that
the presentations, demonstrations, hands-on sessions
with computers and the participants' interaction
during the sessions were expected to generate
a set of recommendations, to be adopted at the
end of the Workshop. The
adopted recommendations are included in section
VII of this report. |
| III.
TECHNOLOGICAL LESSONS FROM THE 2000 ROUND CENSUS
DATA COLLECTION |
| 16. The first day of the Workshop
was dedicated to the sharing of recent experiences
in the application of new information technology
to the collection of population census data.
Powerpoint presentations were made by the Working
Party members from the National
Statistical Office of the Philippines, the
Statistics
and Census Service of Macao, China, Statistics
Indonesia and the Singapore
Department of Statistics. In addition,
there was a moderated session based on country
papers that had been prepared by the participants. |
| 17. The data capture strategy
of the 2000 population and housing census in the
Philippines was based on optical numeric recognition
in four regional data capture centres, each having
the following hardware: Windows NT network with
five mid-volume scanners (Kodak 3510), fifteen
Pentium III workstations, three magneto-optical
disk drives, three CD-writers, a network printer
and a 500 MHz Pentium III server with 90 GB hard
disk capacity. The software components were
Kodak
MVCS for scanning, Eyes
and Hands for Forms for ICR, and a tailor-made
Census Progress Monitoring System. The four data
capture centres were operated by a total of 146
persons, in two shifts, six days a week.
A work shift was staffed by a shift supervisor,
four data controllers (preparing forms for scanning
and checking the validity of geographic codes),
five scanner operators, four verifier operators
and an operator for file preparation and transfer.
In comparison, the staff required for capturing
the data for the 1995 population and housing census
had been more than 600 persons. |
| 18. The Workshop noted that
the recognition rate in the Philippines for OMR
fields had been nearly perfect but that for handwritten
fields, a much lower rate had been achieved, giving
an average recognition rate of 90-95 per cent.
Altogether over 15 million forms had been scanned
and the average speeds for interpretation and
verification were 3,400-3,500 and 270-320 forms
per hour, respectively. |
| 19. The Workshop heard that
the Philippine configuration had too few (only
four) software licences for data verification;
8-10 verification licences would have been optimal.
Other problems included an uneven quality of the
printed forms and illegible or too faint handwriting
entries, which increased the work needed before
scanning and at the verification stage.
Some forms had to be enhanced or rewritten before
scanning. |
| 20. Encouraged by the overall
success, the National Statistical Office of the
Philippines had decided to use the ICR equipment
and software again in the census on agriculture
and fisheries; it was also considering using them
in the processing of foreign trade documents. |
| 21. The pilot project for the
2001 census in Macao, China, had also given very
promising results. A client-server software
of the OCR system had been developed in-house
from the following components: Microsoft SQL Server
6.5, MS Access 97, Delphi 4.0 Enterprise Edition,
ImageEN 1.6, and a dual recognition module consisting
of a commercial API recognizer and an in-house
developed neural network recognizer. The hardware
included an image server, six document scanners
and 24 Pentium workstations. The pilot runs
had given an average recognition rate of 95.6
per cent, with error rate of 0.28 per cent.
Within the reject rate (4.4 per cent), the confirmation
rate and correction rates were 75.6 and 24.4 per
cent, respectively. Compared to manual
data entry, the Statistics and Census Service
estimated that it would save 50 per cent in cost
and that the time needed for data capture, validation
and correction would be cut down from six months
to one month. |
| 22. The data capture of the
Indonesian census, enumerated in June 2000, was
decentralized to 41 centres, having a total of
79 scanners at their disposal. The 55 million
double-sided household forms (representing the
number of households in Indonesia) created a huge
number of individual files during the capture
process, which required robust file management
features of the recognition software. |
| 23. The Workshop noted that
despite careful advance preparation, Statistics
Indonesia encountered a number of problems in
the recognition. The quality of the drop-out
colour varied too much in the printed forms, and
sometimes the guiding colour marks were not omitted
as expected, requiring manual entry of the data.
Like in the Philippines, optical mark recognition
was nearly perfect while the recognition of numbers
encountered problems caused by illegible or too
faint handwriting and by the use of unapproved
or dull pencils. The problems were partially
caused by training the enumerators too far in
advance; the inflexible regulations prevented
use of the allocated training budget at an optimal
point of time. The three-month gap between
the training and enumeration had led to understandable
memory lapses and ignorance of instructions; also
a number of recruited enumerators had become unavailable
in the meanwhile and had to be replaced by inadequately
trained enumerators. |
| 24. The Workshop heard that
in Indonesia's experience, human intervention
by enhancing the quality of numbers did not markedly
improve the recognition results. Besides, the
manual editing process left rubber particles and
other dirt on the forms, which increased the frequency
with which the scanners needed cleaning. |
| 25. The Workshop noted
that in all three census offices (Philippines;
Macao, China; and Indonesia), data were validated
by using software to run predetermined logical
tests. Tests were also run to detect systematic
wrong recognition results, such as number 2 being
recognized as 5, or number 0 incorrectly becoming
6 or 8. |
| 26. The fourth presentation,
by the Singapore Department of Statistics, was
on its ground-breaking Internet census information
submission, which was one of the three ways to
collect census data in the Singapore Census 2000.
The Workshop noted that the system, which was
in the English language only, represented the
second generation of Internet data collection
systems in Singapore. (The first one, for
the Business Expectation Survey, was launched
in March 1998.) Of all Census respondents,
15 per cent chose to submit their information
through the Internet while others responded either
to computer-aided telephone interviews (CATI)
or to person-to-person interviews. |
| 27. The Workshop noted that
the Internet data collection system had been designed
keeping in mind nine target features, namely (i)
fast performance, (ii) user-friendliness, (iii)
security, (iv) stability, (v) compatibility with
a large number of browser platforms, (vi) possibility
to continue form completion in another user session,
(vii) integration with other data collection modes,
(viii) intelligent branching of questions, and
(ix) verification during and after completion
of the form. It further noted that given
the existing technology, many of those requirements
were in obvious contradiction with each other. |
| 28. Based on prototyping and
intensive user-acceptance testing, the front page
of the Singapore Census site was made small in
size (kilobytes) and the form was split into many
parts in order to achieve satisfactory performance
for users. For the same reason, the number
of automated checks, which were first built into
the form, had to be reduced and moved to the server
side. Special attention was paid to the
clarity of the form layout, questions and definitions.
During the enumeration period, hotline telephone
support was available, and in response to the
feedback, frequent system upgrades were made.
High-level security was maintained at all times,
with escalation procedures and plans for contingencies
in place. |
| 29. Reviewing data capture technologies
in the 2000 round of censuses in participating
countries and areas, the Workshop noted that twelve
of them relied on keyboard entry (Brunei Darussalam,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Kiribati, Malaysia, Mongolia,
Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Korea, Samoa,
Sri Lanka, Viet Nam), two on OMR (Bangladesh and
Pakistan), nine on OCR/ICR (Australia; Bangladesh;
China; India; Indonesia; Macao, China; New Zealand;
Philippines; and Thailand) and one on tri-modal
capture (Singapore). Although technological
challenges and problems still existed in using
modern OCR/ICR, such as minimizing and detecting
false positive recognition, the Workshop was pleased
to note that with technological progress, the
maturing technology had significantly lowered
the total cost of census taking and improved the
timeliness of the release of the results compared
to the previous round of censuses. |
30. The Workshop then made several
recommendations regarding census
data collection and capture, including on
- the use of cell phones
and emails to support data collection (paragraph
79)
- the establishment of
a web site to provide information to census
respondents (paragraph
80)
- the importance of careful
questionnaire form design in successful character
recognition (paragraph
81)
- just-in-time training
of enumerators in filling out OCR/ICR forms
(paragraph
82)
- the use of proper pencils
or pens in filling marking OCR/ICR forms (paragraphs
83 and 84)
- the maintenance of scanners
(paragraph
85)
- the robustness of the
file management component of the data capture
chain (paragraph
86)
- he testing of the proposed
data capture configurations in real situations
and making necessary modifications to them
(paragraph
87)
- bandwidth, security and
other considerations in Internet data collection
systems (paragraph
88)
- the testing of Internet
data collection forms in different bandwidths
and improving the real and perceived
performance (paragraph
89)
- data collection control
when Internet collection was accompanied by
other collection methods (paragraph
90)
|
| IV.
CONVERGING DATA STORAGE AND DATA ANALYSIS |
| 31. Noting that data storage
and data analysis had become increasingly closely
related with each other because of technological
innovations (such as data warehousing, data mining
and the Internet), the Workshop decided to discuss
them under one agenda item. A presentation
"Setting up a statistical warehouse - salient
points for consideration" was made by the Singapore
Department of Statistics, which was currently
in a process of analysing bids for the tender
on development of a data warehouse. The
presentation was followed by a discussion and
sharing of regional experiences about data warehousing. |
| 32. The Workshop noted that,
compared to conventional data warehouses that
were holding transaction and business data, statistical
data warehouses had to facilitate more elaborate
data analysis. In particular, statisticians required
that data warehouses facilitated highly flexible
data analysis, displayed metadata dynamically
during analysis, and allowed the customization
of reports and other outputs. |
| 33. The Workshop noted
that moving from a database model, where each
census year formed a dedicated database with specialized
codes and definitions, to a data warehouse consolidating
data from censuses conducted at different times
or combining census data with other data, was
effectively facilitating increased use of census
data. Setting up a data warehouse was a
challenging process and involved a lot of preparatory
work, including standardization of codes and definitions
and cleaning of data. |
| 34. The Workshop noted that
a thin-client design, where most processing was
done at the server-end, was preferred for warehouses
that stored huge volumes of census data.
In the system design, special attention had to
be paid to the integration of data extraction
and data analysis tools, since statistical analysis
was often an iterative process, requiring testing
of a large number of variables. |
| 35. The Workshop noted that
the Singapore Department of Statistics considered
in its own evaluation that a hierarchical drilldown
was a suitable method for selecting data, especially
if business metadata was dynamically displayed.
The ability to save previously selected items
was very important for queries that were needed
frequently or repeatedly. The Workshop noted that
a "drag and drop" -type of interface made statistical
analysis convenient: statistical parameters,
such as the mean and standard deviation, could
be calculated by 'dropping them into' data items
(records or variables) or data items could be
'dropped into' statistical parameters. It
also noted that the possibility to make revisions
to data both locally (affecting only the analyst)
and globally (affecting all users of the data
warehouse) was a very useful feature. |
| 36. The Workshop agreed that
graphical and topographical tools, with integration
to tabulation and drill-down possibility into
points of interest in a graph or map, were desirable
features in a census data warehouse. It
emphasized that a good data warehouse system supported
saving of data outputs, including data extracts,
tabulations, analytical and other reports, or
graphs, in common data formats which could be
read by third party software. |
| 37. In a discussion that followed,
the Workshop noted that the practices of retaining
census forms and stored electronic data varied
in the region. Some census offices were
legally bound to destroy census forms soon after
data capture was completed. More often,
however, census forms were stored for 10 years,
or until the data of the next census was captured.
The Workshop heard that in its 2001 census, Australia
was going to make an exception to its stringent
legal requirement to destroy census forms and
records as soon as possible, by giving respondents
a choice of having their names, addresses and
census form information retained by the National
Archives of Australia and released for research
purposes after 99 years. |
| 38. Noting that information
presented on maps was useful at all stages of
census operations and that geofererence databases
were the core of GIS, the Workshop heard two presentations
on GIS. The first one, based on document
STAT/WDT/1, suggested a grid square database as
a low cost alternative for presenting small area
data. The Workshop noted that a grid square
database could be considered by census organizations
that did not have the resources and expertise
required for digitizing the enumeration boundaries.
Noting that the allocation of households to grid
squares was resource consuming and required fairly
detailed maps, the Workshop reviewed various techniques
that could be used for allocating complete enumeration
districts to grid squares. |
| 39. In the second presentation,
the Workshop was given an overview of how the
United
States Census Bureau used georeferenced data
to display census results. The Workshop
noted that the Bureau's GIS system was building
on its TIGER (Topologically Integrated Geographic
Encoding and Referencing) database, which contained
detailed geographic features for the United States.
TIGER mapping was used at all stages of census,
from enumeration to reporting of results. |
| 40. The American FactFinder
was a web-based system for access and dissemination
of Census Bureau data on the Internet, built from
TIGER boundaries and other geographic information,
census data and metadata. The Workshop noted that
the elaborate online system was a result of incremental
work over the past two decades, responding to
the legislative mandate to provide the public
a full and free access to census statistics.
In the FactFinder, it was possible to 'drilldown'
the maps (which were based on vector graphics)
from country-level down to the census block level.
The Bureau also disseminated census information
through printed atlases and tailor-made GIS products. |
| 41. In addition, the Workshop
reviewed GIS features of three CD-ROM products,
described elsewhere in this report, by the Cambodian
National Institute of Statistics (paragraph
59), the Statistics Bureau of Japan (paragraph
58), and the General Statistical Office of
Viet Nam (paragraph
61) |
42. The Workshop then made several
recommendations regarding census data
storage and analysis, including on
- using new technologies
to link census data longitudinally and with
other data sets (paragraph
92)
- reviewing the applicability
of data warehousing technology when new storage
systems were considered (paragraph
93)
- starting the building
of a data warehouse in a modular fashion and
with manageable data content (paragraph
94) and with business and statistical
considerations in mind (paragraph
95)
- the high cost and effort
involved in setting up a data warehouse and
cleaning the data (paragraph
96)
- building a central system
for maintaining statistical metadata (paragraph
97)
|
43. It also made a few specific
observations and recommendations on the use of
geographical information
systems (GIS) in data dissemination, including
on
- starting the application
of GIS from low-cost alternatives and moving
to advanced GIS technology when skills improved
(paragraph
101)
- considering grid square
GIS as an alternative for presenting census
data on maps (paragraph
98).
- the visually effective
use of low-end GIS (Cambodian National Institute
of Statistics) and high-end GIS (United States
Census Bureau), see paragraphs
99 and 110.
|
| V.
TRANSLATION OF DATA USERS' NEEDS INTO DISSEMINATION
STRATEGIES |
| 44. The Workshop discussed the
importance of building census data dissemination
strategies on the users' needs on the basis of
three presentations, namely "Maintaining relevance
in an environment of change" and "2001 census
dissemination: a world wide web transition" by
the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and "Responding
to changes in users expectations" by Statistics
New Zealand. |
| 45. The Workshop observed that
both countries were paying significant and continuous
attention to soliciting feedback from the established
and potential users of census data; often also
independent evaluators were used. The results
of user consultations were normally made public.
The Workshop noted that in those two offices,
user feedback formed a basis for a proactive product
development strategy. Improved technology,
government-wide policies and prior success of
products were other key factors affecting their
dissemination strategies. |
| 46. During the development of
census products, internal and external users were
involved in prototype and acceptance testing.
The Workshop noted that Australia and New Zealand
routinely considered outsourcing as a possible
alternative for product improvement and development. |
| 47. Noting the experience of
some participants that the audience in data users'
meetings remained largely unchanged over the years,
the Workshop recommended that census offices diversify
their strategies when approaching different user
groups, such as the private sector, the public
at large and children. Noting that the users'
awareness of available census products and services
was just as important as good design, the Workshop
recommended that census offices establish marketing
strategies to inform established and potential
users about the benefits of census products.
Those strategies might use several modes of communication
and include visible product launches. Maintaining
ongoing awareness during and between the census
cycles was also an important part of the strategy. |
| 48. Observing that the participation
of the private sector in user consultations was
generally sporadic in the region, and in some
countries absent altogether, the Workshop recommended
that census offices make special efforts to contact
potential clients in the private sector and involve
them in producer-user consultations and other
promotional activities as equal customers. |
| 49. The Workshop noted that
both Australia and New Zealand considered the
web as the main dissemination channel for their
2001 censuses, focusing their development efforts
accordingly. It warmly recommended that
other census offices adopt a similar strategy
as their delivery capability and users' access
infrastructure developed. It noted that
using self-service and dynamic access to data,
it was possible to make data users more self-reliant
and lower the overall dissemination cost.
The Workshop observed that modern information
technology was also changing the role of printed
material: while some of the 'traditional' publications
were being phased out in Australia and New Zealand,
efforts were made to develop a capability to print
any electronic publication, on an individual basis,
as and when needed. |
| 50. The Workshop noted that
both Australia and New Zealand were planning to
continue to publish community profiles of key
census data as those products had been effective
in raising public awareness of census data and
in increasing its use. |
| 51. The Workshop noted that
the Internet significantly shortened the delivery
time of census data to users; the technology also
improved the predictability of data release as
the printing process and distribution often took
a longer time than expected. |
52. The Workshop then made several
recommendations on general implications arising
from the need to take data users' needs into account
in dissemination
strategies and technologies. It recommended
that statistical and census offices
- adopt a proactive strategy
towards the improvement of data dissemination
(paragraph
102)
- diversify data dissemination
strategies and technology solutions according
to the needs of different types of users (paragraph
103)
- utilize the possibility
offered by optical recognition to capture
and release census data gradually, starting
from key information (paragraph
104)
- use prototyping and vigorous
testing to perfect dissemination products
(paragraph
105)
- use modern marketing
techniques to increase data use (paragraph
106)
- choose hardware and software
platforms that are compatible with standard
technologies (paragraph
107)
- provide web links to
national counterpart sites and other sites
containing useful census information (paragraph
108)
- consider creating community
profiles of census data to increase its use
(paragraph
109)
|
| VI.
INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR DATA DISSEMINATION
|
| 53. Under this agenda item,
the Workshop heard an introduction to new data
dissemination technologies by Statistics New Zealand,
and reviewed four CD-ROM products (by Australia,
Cambodia, Japan and Viet Nam) and three state-of-the-art
data dissemination packages and suites (PC-Axis,
Beyond 20/20 and SuperStar System). On the
basis of a presentation by the Interregional Adviser
on Computers and Informatics of the United Nations
Statistics Division, it also considered what census
offices needed to take into account when setting
up a web site. |
| 54. From the users' point of
view, the Workshop saw modern information technology
as a means of breaking down the barrier to accessing
census data. The technology brought users
large volumes of data more easily and cheaply
and allowed the creation of systems where users
could service themselves. The ultimate goal,
which was well within the reach of currently available
technology, was that all publishable census data
was made available on the Internet. A significant
advantage of that dissemination strategy was that
the same facility could cater for the needs of
both internal and external users. |
| 55. The Workshop recognized
that general data users, such as students, pensioners,
libraries, and small businesses normally required
relatively simple sets of data for one-time use.
However, all those uses covered a large range
of information. Analysts, on the other hand, had
complex and often voluminous requirements, with
detailed regional and other breakdowns; they were
also interested in detailed metadata. The
Workshop acknowledged that development of a web
site catering for all those needs was challenging;
that task was not made easier by the requirement
of delivering acceptable response to user front-ends
at all times. |
| 56. The Workshop noted that
Statistics New Zealand was planning to expand
the use of intermediaries in connection with its
2001 census, including the media, libraries, information
brokers and bundlers, channel managers of high
speed networks, community organizations and government
organizations who already had close contacts with
user groups. That office was also planning
to significantly improve the navigation of their
census web site and pay special attention to the
users' ability to service themselves. That was
achieved, among other things, by using common
language; removing or explaining census jargon;
increasing the ways to access data, terminology,
area breakdowns and maps; and by improving sorting-by-topic
and other features of the search facility. |
| 57. The Workshop agreed that
considering the cost savings and benefits the
application of present-day technology brought
to census taking, processing and data dissemination,
the expenditure on information technology was
relatively easy to justify. |
| 58. The Workshop
was given presentations on two educational CD-ROMs
for children and schools, 'Let's use the Census
data' by the Statistics Bureau of Japan, and 'A
Tale of Two Worlds' from the Australian Bureau
of Census. The Japanese CD used GIS technology
to visualize census data by small area and different
scales. On the Australian CD, the history,
purpose, benefits and conduct of the census were
explained by using interactive multimedia techniques,
including games. |
| 59. The Workshop
also reviewed CD-ROM products disseminating the
results of two recent censuses. The 1998
Cambodian Census was available on four separate
CD-ROMs, of which three were demonstrated to the
Workshop. The first one had been released
in 1999 and contained 47 priority tables at country,
province and district levels, altogether over
11,000 tables. The second CD contained mapping
and graphing database based on PopMap and the
third one a very large REDATAM-based database
containing microdata of all person and housing
records. The fourth CD, which was not demonstrated
at the Workshop, contained aggregated data for
Cambodia's 13,339 villages in six DBF-databases,
each covering a different topic. |
| 60. The Workshop was especially
impressed by the visual effectiveness and user
friendliness of the PopMap-based product.
The application consisted of detailed maps for
Cambodia, its provinces, districts and communes,
with line layers for the main routes and rivers
and point layers for the villages and schools.
A total of 123 different indicators down to the
commune level formed the heart of the application. |
| 61. The General
Statistical Office of Viet Nam demonstrated a
CD-ROM containing a three per cent sample of the
1999 census. The application was based on
the IMPS (Integrated Microcomputer Processing
System) suite, including its database, cross tabulation,
and table and map viewer components. In that connection,
the Workshop noted that IMPS was the main data
processing tool for censuses in several statistical
offices in Asia and the Pacific. Its popularity
was due to its low cost (acquisition free) and
the possibility to use it flexibly, either as
a complete processing system or any of its data
entry, data editing, tabulation, data dissemination,
statistical analysis and data capture control
modules individually. |
| 62. The Workshop noted that
IMPS was being replaced by the Census and Survey
Processing System (CSPro),
which was an integrated public domain software
package for entering, tabulating and mapping census
and survey data, featuring the user-friendliness
of IMPS and the computational power of the Integrated
System for Survey Analysis (ISSA). |
| 63. The Workshop also reviewed
three commercial data dissemination tools suitable
for small and large data sets, and having powerful
desktop data manipulation facilities and web based
detailed data access facilities. PC-Axis was a
product developed in collaboration with many statistical
organizations in Europe and Africa, with Statistics
Sweden as the main initiator and coordinator.
Beyond
20/20, by a Canadian company with the same
name, was a comprehensive tool for analysing and
sharing statistical data, while SuperSTAR was
a powerful tabulation tool for aggregating, viewing
and presenting multidimensional data, developed
by Australian Space-Time
Research. The Workshop reviewed some
web sites, as well as data dissemination CDs,
delivering data in the three formats. |
| 64. The Workshop observed that
the performance, especially in terms of retrieval
and tabulation speeds, and the flexibility and
ease of control of the demonstrated commercial
software went well beyond what off-the-shelf database
packages and some of the public domain packages
provided. Without ranking the demonstrated
commercial tools, the Workshop recommended that
statistical and census offices consider evaluating
them when creating dissemination strategies.
It noted, however, that the sophistication carried
a price tag and that the prices for census offices
were subject to one-to-one negotiation.
Among other factors, the prices depended on the
population of the country, the size of data sets
involved, and the volume of dissemination. |
| 65. The final presentation at
the Workshop, by the Interregional Adviser on
Computers and Informatics of the
United Nations Statistics Division, was based
on the learning experiences of Statistics
Sweden in keeping up with increasing traffic
to its web site. When Statistics Sweden
was releasing its annual population figures on
the web at the end of 1999, its server soon became
inaccessible due to the unprecedented surge in
the number of requests. The Workshop noted
that to prevent similar embarrassing breaks in
service in the future, the agency had taken several
swift actions. It changed the most popular
data content to relatively small static HTML pages;
increased the server's bandwidth to the Internet;
added a second web server; upgraded the server
operating systems from Microsoft Windows NT to
Windows 2000; used software to automatically balance
the load between the servers; and rerouted email
elsewhere to avoid large files taking up bandwidth
from the web service. It also included a
direct link from its home page to the most wanted
population tables for easier and faster navigation. |
| 66. The Workshop noted that
after the incident Statistics Sweden had substantially
upgraded its staff development programme to improve
technical skills and organizational coordination
in content preparation. More attention was being
paid also to the monitoring of the web site traffic,
including the popularity of pages, and to periodic
test runs under heavy external load. |
| 67. The Workshop noted that
traffic monitoring was also a necessary security
measure. Hostile attacks to the web server
were best countered by mainstream firewalls that
were kept up to date. The Workshop agreed
that security technology had to complemented by
a contingency plan that allowed a quick recovery
of service and minimized the escalation of damage. |
| 68. The Workshop noted that
the interruption of web service because of heavy
peak traffic was not uncommon. For instance,
the Australian Bureau of Statistics had once been
forced to close down its web server as the demand
for national accounts figures jammed its capability
to deliver. The corrective measures taken
were very similar to those adopted in Sweden. |
| 69. At the end of the Workshop,
several participants demonstrated their live web
sites and invited the audience to visit their
census pages. The URLs of the offices of the participants
and resource persons are included in Annex I (List
of participants). |
70. On data dissemination through
the Internet, the Workshop recommended that statistical
and census offices
- adopt the Internet as
part of their dissemination strategy, use
hypertext interface on CD-ROM, and use email
for data promotion and for disseminating summary
results (paragraph
111)
- develop an internal policy
and utilization of the Internet in general
and include the production of web material
in training programmes (paragraph
112)
- create functional coordinating
mechanisms for web site management (paragraph
113)
- improve internal web
site management skills through recruitment
and training (paragraph
114)
- design census dissemination
sites for relatively low bandwidths by using
various page authoring and data access techniques
(paragraph
115)
- provide file formats
and scripts that all common browsers could
handle (paragraph
116)
- include in web sites
census metadata in an easily accessible format
(paragraph
117)
- consider features that
helped clients service themselves when accessing
census data (paragraph
118)
- monitor the web site
traffic and adjust the site content and navigation
as the reports might suggest (paragraph
119)
- pay special attention
to the clarity of information and test the
individual pages and the whole site thoroughly
(paragraph
120)
- provide the most popular
content in static HTML in order to improve
the site performance (paragraph
121)
- be prepared to adjust
the number of servers and balance the load
as the traffic increases (paragraph
122)
- to ensure the uptime
of the public web site, use separate servers
for resource-consuming tasks (paragraph
123)
- keep production servers
isolated from the Internet (paragraph
124)
- consider using XML to
code structured data pages (paragraph
125)
|
| VII.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS |
| 71. The Workshop adopted the
following conclusions and recommendations. |
| General,
IT management |
| 72. The Workshop reviewed the
recommendations of the previous workshop (Workshop
on Application of New Information Technology to
Population Data, 12-20 October 1999), noted that
they were still valid and requested that the secretariat,
in due course, merge them into the recommendations
of this workshop. |
| 73. The Workshop noted that
the utilization of IT had brought considerable
quantifiable benefits to census processing, especially
in the form of direct cost savings and improved
timeliness of statistics. It recommended
that statistical and census offices continuously
accumulate experiences in evaluating, developing
and using information technology, as the development
of organizational practices and of the skills
required to manage information technology effectively
was a long process. |
| 74. Noting that maintenance
of the privacy and confidentiality of data providers
was very important, the Workshop recommended a
very cautious approach towards outsourcing of
census data collection and data capture operations.
For the same reason, the release of unit record
data and the dissemination of small area statistics
had to be subjected to careful confidentialization.
The Workshop noted, however, that similar concerns
were not generally involved in the dissemination
of census statistics and recommended that census
organizations consider the possibility of outsourcing
the development and marketing of census products,
in order to make them more attractive to paying
customers and other users. |
| 75. The Workshop recommended
that statistical and census offices continue to
share information about their application development
with other government departments and foreign
counterparts. It requested that the secretariat
facilitate such exchange in the region. |
| 76. The Workshop recommended
that before initiating extensive in-house development
or procuring expensive software and applications
from outside, statistical and census offices evaluate
available public domain software and the possibilities
of creating applications by customizing common
off-the-shelf packages and office suites. |
| 77. When an Internet application
did not support all browsers, the Workshop recommended
that information be supplied on which browsers
were supported and for which versions and screen
resolutions the site was optimized. |
| Data
collection and capture |
| 78. The Workshop noted that
data capture through OCR/ICR had become a proven
technology that could make significant cost, timeliness
and accuracy improvements in census data capture. |
| 79. Noting
the challenges many countries have in communicating
with the large number of temporary enumerators
at census time, the Workshop noted the significant
improvements that established technologies such
as cell phones and email could make. |
| 80. The Workshop
noted that respondents to censuses now expected
to be better informed about the ways census data
was to be collected, disseminated and utilized,
and recommended that census offices establish
a web site with information for respondents in
a question-and-answer format. |
| 81. The Workshop
noted that, despite the well-known importance
of careful questionnaire form design in successful
optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent
character recognition (ICR), shortcomings in questionnaire
design had been an important reason for incomplete
or improper markings on the forms in recent enumerations,
leading to lower recognition rates. The
Workshop therefore recommended that statistical
and census offices pay even greater attention
to forms design. |
| 82. The Workshop
recommended that census organizations pay special
attention to just-in-time training of enumerators
in filling out the OCR/ICR forms, as inadequate
training or training given too far in advance
had affected the quality of marking. |
| 83. The Workshop
made several observations and recommendations
regarding marking the OCR and ICR forms.
Some census offices reported deviations from the
specifications to use certain types of pencils
or pens. The Workshop noted that the problem
could be alleviated by the provision of proper
pencils or pens and by emphasizing the importance
of their use in training. |
| 84. The Workshop
heard that, in certain conditions, pencil markings
had started fading within a few weeks, which had
adversely affected the recognition results. Therefore,
it recommended that scanning of the OCR and ICR
forms should be completed as soon as possible
after the enumeration. The Workshop noted
that enhancing of faint markings manually before
scanning was another solution to the problem.
However, that method was labour-intensive and
sometimes introduced double lines, and thereby
could confuse recognition engines or lead to false
positive recognition of characters. |
| 85. The Workshop
recommended that operators follow the manufacturers'
instructions on the maintenance of scanners.
Rubber particles, dust and dirt had to be removed
on a daily basis, or more frequently. |
| 86. Noting
that scanning of multi-page questionnaires created
a large number of individual files, the Workshop
recommended that system evaluators pay attention
to the robustness and customization possibilities
of the file management component of the data capture
chain. |
| 87. The Workshop
noted that an optimal census data capture configuration
depended not only on the hardware and software
but also on many locally determined factors, including
the procurement and operating budget. Therefore,
the Workshop recommended that census organizations
test configurations proposed by vendors in real
situations and make necessary adjustments to the
numbers of workstations in a data capture chain,
the number of operating personnel and the number
of capture clusters, and in the case of a decentralized
strategy, the number of capture centres also.
In some cases, such adjustments required (re)customization
of the software interface. |
| 88. The Workshop
noted that Internet data collection systems needed
to be fast, easy and secure to use and that the
Internet form needed to work without glitches
in all common browsers and operating systems.
In today's typical Internet user environment,
many of the requirements were in obvious contradiction
with each other. The Workshop noted that the bandwidth
was an important consideration and that Internet
applications needed to be designed with the available
community bandwidth in mind. |
| 89. The Workshop
recommended that Internet data collection forms
should be tested externally with different bandwidths.
Splitting lengthy forms into several smaller parts
was one way to improve users' perception about
system performance. The Workshop advised
offices to keep the portal page of a data collection
site compact and to place pages that took longer
to download below that level. |
| 90. Although
the Internet technologies provided significant
opportunities in electronic data collection in
general, the Workshop noted that it could not
become a sole method for census data collection.
When using more than one method of data collection,
the Workshop urged census offices to pay particular
attention to collection control matters in order
to avoid duplication and gaps in enumeration. |
| 91. The Workshop recommended
that statistical and census offices establish
a hotline and other support services to coincide
with the introduction of an Internet data collection
application. |
| Data
storage and analysis |
| 92. The Workshop
took note of many advances in information technology
that had made the linking of census data longitudinally
and with other data sets easier. Noting
that the same evolution was becoming also a user
requirement, the Workshop recommended that such
features should guide new systems development. |
| 93. The Workshop
recommended that statistical and census offices
review the applicability of data warehouse technology
in their circumstances when they consider building
data storage systems from scratch. |
| 94. The Workshop
recommended that data warehouse construction should
be started with manageable data content, at the
same time planning for an incremental development
that allowed expansion at a later stage. |
| 95. The Workshop
recommended that statistical and census offices
approach data warehousing, and data warehouse
vendors, with their business needs in mind and
from a statistical point of view. That meant,
for instance, building in analytical flexibility
and the possibility for client customization (save
retrieval criteria, allow local data changes). |
| 96. The Workshop
cautioned that data warehouses were not typical
off-the-shelf products; they were expensive and
difficult to set up. In addition, data cleaning
was very resource intensive. The Workshop
noted that the Singapore Department of Statistics
was in a better position than most census organizations
to set up a data warehouse as they had a long
history of maintaining structured electronic data,
which had led to certain consolidation and harmonization
of coding schemes and classifications in their
holdings. |
| 97. Noting
that census data could not be analysed and released
without associated metadata, within or outside
statistical and census organizations, the Workshop
recommended that offices work towards establishing
a system that allowed central maintenance of metadata. |
| GIS |
| 98. The Workshop
recommended that census organizations that did
not have access to digitized boundary maps of
enumeration districts consider grid square GIS
as a cost-effective alternative for presenting
census data on maps. |
| 99. The Workshop
compared with interest effective illustrations
of census data by using "low-end" and "high-end"
GIS technologies. The United States Census
Bureau had been developing its GIS system in an
incremental fashion for more than two decades
and was now using very elaborate GIS features
on its public web site disseminating the results
of the 2000 census. |
| 100. The geographic presentation
component on a CD-ROM containing the results from
the 1998 census of Cambodia, which had been created
by using PopMap, a free software package developed
by the United Nations, was also visually very
effective. |
| 101. The
Workshop recommended that census offices which
do not yet have GIS-based dissemination capability
consider low-cost alternatives for disseminating
mapped census data, and move to advanced GIS as
maps and skills improve. |
| General
aspects of data dissemination |
| 102. Noting
that new technology allowed much more flexible
and dynamic data dissemination than previously,
the Workshop recommended that statistical and
census organizations adopt a proactive strategy
towards developing their data dissemination strategy
and tools. That included, among other things,
regular user consultations, internal and external
evaluation of established products, monitoring
changes in existing and potential new clientele,
and monitoring what new technologies had become
available and how those affected customers' expectations. |
| 103. The
Workshop noted that taking into account the needs
of different types of users required alternative
product designs. Occasional users, for instance,
wanted to access simple tables and charts quickly
without the clutter of extensive metadata.
In contrast, analysts wanted to manipulate data
flexibly, to drill down to disaggregated data
and to have easy access to all available metadata. |
| 104. The
Workshop recognized that optical data capture
technology had allowed census organizations to
move to a gradual release strategy, in which basic
counts for important information were recognized,
coded, edited and published soon after enumeration,
leaving less important data and data that were
difficult to code and recognize for a later stage. |
| 105. The
Workshop recommended that census organizations
use prototyping when creating new dissemination
products and subject the prototypes and "beta"
versions to a meticulous user acceptance testing.
As even rigorous testing did not reveal every
problem, the Workshop recommended that developers
include in all census products intuitive help
features and information on how to contact technical
support. |
| 106. The
Workshop cautioned that technological maturity
and functional design did not guarantee that a
data product became successful. It recommended
that census organizations use modern marketing
techniques in the launch of a product, including
attractive packaging, advertising, public relations
and promotion. |
| 107. The
Workshop recommended that statistical and census
offices choose hardware and software, including
firewalls and other data protection technology,
that were compatible with standard platforms.
That generally reduced the maintenance cost in
the long run and allowed greater flexibility in
choosing software and hardware in the future. |
| 108. The
Workshop recommended that census offices provide
on their web sites links to counterpart sites
in the region and to technical web sites that
contained useful census information. |
| 109. Hearing
the positive experiences of Australia and New
Zealand in publishing community profiles based
on their censuses, the Workshop recommended that
other census offices consider disseminating similar
products in suitable media as a means to increase
the use of census data. |
| 110. The
Workshop heard with interest that the Australian
Bureau of Statistics was evaluating a relatively
inexpensive tool that could convert existing digital
raster maps into scaleable vector graphics, and
welcomed its offer to share its experiences in
due course. |
| Data
dissemination via the Internet |
| 111. Noting
that many developed countries, within and outside
the region, considered the world wide web as the
most important channel in disseminating the results
of their year 2000 round of censuses, the Workshop
recommended that statistical and census offices
adopt Internet technology as part of their data
dissemination strategy. In circumstances where
live Internet dissemination was not feasible,
the development of a hypertext interface for a
dissemination CD, for instance, prepared census
offices for an eventual launch of a live data
dissemination site. The Workshop noted that
e-mail could be used for keeping known customers
informed about release schedules; e-mail could
also be used for disseminating summary results. |
| 112. The
Workshop recommended that statistical and census
offices develop a house policy and guidelines
on the utilization of the Internet in general.
As an increasing number of staff was becoming
involved in one way or the other in web publishing,
the Workshop recommended that statistical and
census offices include the production of material
for the web in staff development and training
programmes. |
| 113. Noting
that a successful web operation involved all levels
in the managerial hierarchy, and administrative,
substantive and IT staff, the Workshop recommended
that statistical and census offices prepare for
functional coordination mechanisms to deal with
various aspects of web site management within
the organization. |
| 114. The
Workshop noted that the rapid evolution of the
world wide web had broadened the range of tools
and techniques needed for the management of ever
more complex web sites and for arranging dynamic
access to data. Although it was possible
to procure web site design and hosting services
commercially, the Workshop agreed that statistical
and census offices were better served if they
acquired sufficient in-house skills through recruitment
and staff training. |
| 115. The
Workshop recommended that census offices design
their Internet dissemination sites for a relatively
low bandwidth as census data per se was in compact
character format. That meant, among other things,
including a possibility to access hierarchical
navigation and search tools from the front page,
placing maps and other graphical information in
optionally downloadable pages and offering compressed
file format as an alternative for downloading
large files. In addition, the Workshop recommended
mentioning the file size next to its download
link. |
| 116. Noting
that the need to download dedicated data browsing
software could be an impediment to the use of
census data, the Workshop recommended that census
offices make their Internet data accessible by
using file formats that could be accessed through
common browsers and viewers. |
| 117. The
Workshop recommended that census offices include
metadata in their census products in an easily
accessible format, for instance by using pop-up
windows and hyperlinks. |
| 118. The
Workshop noted that one of the objectives of Statistics
New Zealand's dissemination strategy for the 2001
census was to improve customers' ability to service
themselves when accessing census data. That
affected especially the design of how data and
metadata could be found, retrieved and downloaded
from the web site. |
| 119. The
Workshop also recommended that statistical and
census offices monitor the traffic on their web
site, including the number of hits, successful
retrievals and return users, the popularity of
pages and data and the common entry points, in
order to identify key user groups and changes
in their browsing behaviour and to improve the
site content and navigation. |
| 120. The
Workshop recommended that statistical and census
offices pay attention to the clarity of information
on web pages and test pages technically with different
browsers and speeds of connection. Periodically,
a more thorough testing of the whole site was
needed, including simulating a heavy external
load. |
| 121. To improve
the capacity of a web server to cater for a maximum
number of requests, the Workshop recommended delivering
the most popular content in small and static HTML
pages, which could be cached and downloaded quickly. |
| 122. As the
volume of traffic to the web site grew, the Workshop
recommended that census and statistical offices
be prepared to increase the number of servers
and use software control to balance the load between
them. |
| 123. The
Workshop recommended that statistical and census
offices use separate servers for specialized resource-consuming
tasks, such as data collection, table building
and delivery of maps, in order to ensure that
the front end public web site maintained standards
of delivery at all times. |
| 124. The
Workshop recommended that statistical and census
offices keep their production servers isolated
from the Internet. |
| 125. The
Workshop recommended that statistical and census
offices consider using Extensible Markup Language
(XML) in their data pages as it was a universal
format for structured documents and data on the
web; it also recommended that they monitor developments
regarding adding special statistical features
to it, including the discussions at the 2002 session
of the Statistical Commission. |
| Annex
I. List
of participants |
| Annex
II.Tentative
time schedule |
| Annex
III. List of documents and presentations |
|
(Electronic versions
are available through the Workshop
homepage) |
| Symbol |
Title |
| STAT/WDT/3 |
Introduction
to project RAS/96/P12 and expectations for
the Workshop |
| Technological
lessons from the 2000 round census data
collection (Agenda item 3) |
| Presentation |
Latest Innovations
in Methods and Tools for Census Data: Technological
Lessons from the 2000 Round of the Philippine
Census |
| STAT/WDT/4 |
The Use of
OCR Technology in Population Census of Macao,
China |
| Presentation |
The Use of
OCR Technology in Population Census of Macao,
China |
| STAT/WDT/5 |
The use of
OCR Technology in 2000 Population Census:
Indonesian Experience |
| Presentation |
The use of
OCR Technology in 2000 Population Census:
Indonesian Experience |
| Presentation |
Internet data
collection in Singapore Census 2000: Static
Demonstration & Lessons for future improvement |
| Presentation |
Discussion
of Data Collection Technologies based on
country papers |
| Presentation |
'Let's use
the Census data' - CD-ROM for children in
Japan |
| Presentation |
'A Tale of
Two Worlds' - CD-ROM for schools in Australia |
| Converging
data storage and data analysis (Agenda item
4 and 5) |
| Presentation |
Setting up
a Statistical Data Warehouse - Salient points
for Consideration |
| STAT/WDT/1 |
An Alternative
Approach for Presenting Small Area Statistics:
A Grid Square Database |
| Translation
of data users' needs into dissemination
strategies (Agenda item 6) |
| Presentation |
Maintaining
relevance in an environment of change |
| Presentation |
2001 Census
of Population & Dwellings: Approach
to Data Dissemination in New Zealand |
| STAT/WDT/2 |
The world wide
web and Australian Census 2001 |
| Presentation |
The world wide
web and Australian Census 2001 |
| Presentation |
Moderated discussion
based on country reports and the recommendations
of the previous workshop |
| Innovative
technologies for data dissemination (Agenda
item 7) |
| Presentation |
Using technology
to break down the barriers to accessing
data |
| Presentation |
Disseminating
Geodemographic Information to the Census
Bureau's user community |
| Presentation |
Dissemination
of census statistics on CD-ROM: Viet Nam |
| Presentation |
Demonstration
- PC-Axis |
| Presentation |
Demonstration
- Beyond 20/20 |
| Presentation |
Demonstration
- SuperSTAR System |
| STAT/WDT/6 |
Going to the
net with national statistics: What is there
to consider |
| Presentation |
Going to the
net with national statistics: What is there
to consider |
| Country
Papers (Relevant to agenda items 3-7) |
| STAT/WDT/Bangladesh |
Bangladesh
Population Census in the New Millennium |
| STAT/WDT/Brunei
Darussalam |
Brunei Darussalam
2001 Population and Housing Census: Methods
in Data Collection, Storage, Analysis and
Dissemination. |
| STAT/WDT/Cambodia |
Country Paper:
Cambodia |
| STAT/WDT/China |
The Introduction
of China's 2000 Population Census |
| STAT/WDT/India |
Country Paper:
India |
| STAT/WDT/Kiribati |
Methods in
Data Collection, Storage, Analysis and Dissemination
of Data for the 2000 Population Census of
Kiribati |
| STAT/WDT/Malaysia |
Population
and Housing Census of Malaysia 2000 |
| STAT/WDT/Mongolia |
The 2000 Population
and Housing Census Data Processing and Dissemination
Strategy |
| STAT/WDT/Nepal |
Nepal's Upcoming
Population Census 2001 |
| STAT/WDT/Pakistan |
Methods/Technologies
of Collection, Analysis, Storage and Dissemination
of 1998 Census Data of Pakistan |
| STAT/WDT/Papua
New Guinea |
Country Paper:
Papua New Guinea |
| STAT/WDT/Philippines |
Latest Innovations
in Methods and Tools for Census Data: Technological
Lessons from the 2000 Round of the Philippine
Census |
| STAT/WDT/Republic
of Korea |
Population
Data Analysis, Storage and Dissemination
Technologies in Korea 2000 Census |
| STAT/WDT/Samoa |
Population
Data 2001 - Samoa |
| STAT/WDT/Sri
Lanka |
Census of Population
and Housing, 2001 - Sri Lanka |
| STAT/WDT/Thailand |
The Intelligence
Characteristic Recognition in Capturing
Thailand 2000 Population and Housing Census
Questionnaire |
| STAT/WDT/Viet
Nam |
Country Paper:
Viet Nam |
| Background
Material: |
| STAT/WNIT/Rep |
Report on the
Workshop on Application of New Information
Technology to Population Data |
| . |
Handbook on
census management for population and housing
censuses, Series F, No. 83, United Nations,
New York, 2000 |
|
|
