EDITING PROCESS IN THE CASE OF SLOVENIAN REGISTER-BASED CENSUS

1. EDITING PROCESS IN THE CASE OF SLOVENIAN REGISTER-BASED CENSUS Rudi Seljak Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia

2. Previous censuses • Till 2002 the census process performed in classical way: • Field data collection; manual editing; data entry (firstly manually, later optical reading); data editing (manual & automated). • Statistical process in the 2002 Census introduced several novelties: • Combined data collection method, using administrative data and field enumeration. • No manual editing before data entry stage → optical reading → verification of data done simultaneously. • Most consistency checks automated; for the first time complete imputation for some variables.

3. Census 2011 – main characteristics • Completely register-based; no more field work • Data obtained from: • Administrative and statistical registers • Other external databases • Regular statistical surveys • Project was performed just by using own resources (no outsourcing) • Small group (6 persons) performed most of the operative work

4. Statistical process –schematic presentation

5. Statistical process – main principles • Two main demands: traceability and repeatability • If any item in the record is changed → new version of the record is created and inserted into database. • Different versions of the record properly denoted • For each processed variable also the status of the variable exists. • Status of the variable – metadata on what and how has been changed (for particular variable) through the process. 4-digit standard code

6. Editing process - Integration • Approx. 20 different sources is integrated. Linking information on: population; households; dwellings • Complex corrections where several records are processed, are performed at this stage (e.g. all records from one household) • Ad hoc programs used (Oracle PL/SQL procedures)

7. Editing process – manual corrections • Two main problems solved by manual corrections: • connecting children to parents in case of foreigner's households • family formation in complex household with several members

8. Editing process – systematic corrections • Data corrections where rules refer only to one individual record. • Metadata driven application used: rules written in the metadata tables → processing performed by the general sas application

9. Editing process – missing data imputation • Imputations for the cases where data in administrative and statistical sources are not available. • For most of the variables very small part of target population • Logical and donor-based imputation methods mostly used • General metadata driven application also used • Performance of the application was quite problematic at the beginning → redesign of the application needed

10. Conclusions • Register based census demand completely new approach to data processing. • A great savings due to absence of the field work → more demanding data integration and data editing part of the process. • Two main demands: traceability and repeatability of each step in the process. • Data editing performed with combination of manual editing, ad-hoc procedures, MDD general application.