1. General Census of Population, Housing and Establishments 2010, Sultanate of Oman Environment Friendly & Gender Sensitive Ali bin Mahboob Al-Raisi Director General General Population, Housing and Establishments Census 2010

2. Introduction: Oman Census Enjoyed Modern census that enjoyed full coverage of enumeration units without missing and/or duplication, enjoyed highest quality with respect to the information collected, environmentally friendly (paperless), and gender sensitive, contributed to enhancing global census methodology and approaches, operated under the rights-based approach whereby the population/respondents and data users are the Rights holders and the Census Staff are the Duty bearers, Data confidentiality guarded and ensured in keeping with the Statistical Law.

3. Oman census Omans General Census of Population, Housing and Establishments 2010 developed and adopted the Total Quality and Improvements approach, The approach aims at capturing accurate and comprehensive picture of the social, economic and living conditions of the population in the Sultanate of Oman as well as key information concerning the establishments. This is imperative for relevant and effective policy, planning and decision making purposes for the upcoming 10 years. In keeping with His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Saids vision, enthusiasm and directives in utilizing cutting-edge technology to enhance the performance of governmental institutions, an innovative suite of integrated systems specifically developed to fully handle all aspects of the census has been adopted. State-of the-art technology has been harnessed and used in all components of the census operations to ensure the optimal results of full coverage and total quality and improvements approach.

4. Harnessed Technology To ensure coverage completeness, high quality Satellite pictures covering 96% of agglomerations were secured, developed into digital maps reflecting all structures, and loaded into the PDAs for ground verification and validation. Advance data collection methods were employed for easing the response burden off the population while ensuring highest completeness and quality of the data collected. Enumerators armed with PDAs will conduct door-to-door interviews. Information gathered were validated and corrected by means of internal consistency checks using automatically enforced business rules and question skip patterns. All mobile applications contain geospatial data utilized in digital maps to help enumerators navigate their surroundings and electronically fence them in their allocated enumeration work area. Fieldwork was organized and coordinated by a well-designed hierarchical structure of crew-leaders, assistant supervisors and supervisors in regional offices located throughout the Sultanate and assisted with a number of applications

5. Regional Offices Regional office systems provided full control over fieldwork and the ability for real time immediate follow up and intervention to ensure smooth execution, full coverage and qualitative data. Data collected by enumerators were automatically synchronized to regional offices. After synchronization data were reviewed and assessed for any red flags through predefined key indicators before it was transferred to the central database.

6. I-Census or E-Z Census Internet-based census website (I-Census or E-Z Census) was made accessible throughout the Sultanate. This approach was adopted to accommodate households that would rather fill their census information online without the need to be interviewed by enumerators. It enabled any computer literate member of the household or outside of the household to fill an online and user- friendly wizard-like questionnaire whenever suitable. All entered information was validated and corrected on the spot to ensure internal consistency using automatically enforced business rules and question skip patterns.

7. Computer-assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system Data quality, validity and cleanliness are of utmost importance in this census project. Accordingly, data collected through PDA applications and the I- Census (e-z census) website were further checked and validated by a Computer-assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system. The CATI system developed enabled trained operators conduct telephone interviews with households to complete and validate their data avoiding the need for field revisits where possible. CATI was also used for response computer-assisted coding (CAC), communicating with the public and answering inquiries (Toll-free number) … etc. CATI is explained in detail later.

8. Integrated system Operation room applications was installed at the headquarters to help officials and census managers track performance, progress, coverage completeness, quality and to identify any red flags that might hinder or jeopardize the success of the census through the use of predefined key indicators. All system components integrate seamlessly ensuring flawless execution, superior performance and smooth transition from one component to the other and from one phase to the next. To marginalize any risk factor, all systems were extensively tested and a number of pilots were performed. Based on that, systems refinements were introduced. Staff members were heavily trained each according to their assigned responsibility. The Census project is a suite of integrated systems specifically harnessed and developed to fully handle all aspects of the census process.

9. Main Features of the Integrated System a) Satellite photos and Digital mapping, b) PDA Applications, c) I-Census Website (eZcensus), d) Computer-assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) System, e) Regional Office Systems, f) Operation Room Systems, g) E-Office, and h) GRP System

10. Computer-assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) System CATI system was used to validate gathered information through the telephone. The Call Centre and Quality Assurance used CATI System for re-interviewing households for: a) completing missing data; and b) for double assurance of coverage and content quality by means of sampling. In addition, an IVR system was used for providing general information to the callers to a toll free number (80072010).

11. Following is a list of its most important features of CATI System: Full telephony features to communicate with the public. All conversations were recorded and played back when needed. Served 300+ operators simultaneously. Communicated with the public in 6 different languages. Provided support and help for the public throughout the census period (Toll-free numbers). Sent promotional and informational emails/SMS to households participating in the I-Census (eZcensus). Communicated with the public to validate their information through telephone thus avoiding extra field revisits where possible.

12. Important features of CATI and eZcensus…/Continued Review and validate all collected data through automatically enforced business rules. Business rules can be added/deleted/modified and reflected on the system instantaneously. The system is guarded with a username/password to limit access and ensure data security and confidentiality. Authorization on specific screens and data is granted according to predefined user roles that match their responsibilities. Perform response coding tasks. Advanced search features to filter long lists and huge record sets.