Electronic data collection System in CSB of Latvia By Karlis Zeila, Vice President, CSB of Latvia UN ECE Work Session on Statistical Data Editing, 16 – 18 May 2005,Ottawa

2 Web data collection: advantages: for respondent:  the possibility to see, analyze and edit the provided data for the previous periods,  it is possible to enter the data gradually,  it is possible to run validation procedures,  no postal expenses are required. for CSB:  less postal expenses,  no manual data entry required,  increased data quality, because primary data control has already been done by respondent,  flexible system of automatic reminders sending to respondent gives possibility to rise response rate.

3 ISDMS architecture Integrated statistical data management system Corporative data Warehouse CSB Web Site Macrodata base Metadata base Microdata base Registers base OLAP data base User adminis- tration data base Dissemi- nation data base Windows 2000 Server Advanced MS Internet Information Server SQL server 2000, PC-Axis ISDMS Business application Software Modules Core metadata base module related with DB: Registers module related with DB: Data entry and validation module related with DB: Data aggregation module related with DB: Data analysis module related with DB: FIREWALL METADATA USER ADMINISTRATION REGISTERS USER ADMINISTRATION METADATA MICRODATA REGISTERS USER ADMINISTRATION METADATA MICRODATA REGISTERS USER ADMINISTRATION OLAP METADATA MACRODATA Raw data base Data dissemination module related with DB: Data WEB entry module related with DB: Data mass entry module related with DB: Missed data imputation module related with DB: METADATA MACRODATA REGISTERS USER ADMINISTRATION METADATA MICRODATA REGISTERS USER ADMINISTRATION METADATA MICRODATA REGISTERS RAW DATABASE USER ADMINISTRATION METADATA MICRODATA REGISTERS DATA IMPUTATION SOFTWARE User administration module related with DB: METADATA MICRODATA MACRODATA USER ADMINISTRATION

4 Electronic data collection as sub – system

5 CONCLUSIONS  37 different business statistics surveys are implemented within the fist year of EDC system exploitation,  38% of response rate achieved for the first three surveys implemented,  10% of average response rate achieved for all surveys implemented,  Comments from respondents, which have started to use the system, are quite positive, due to advantages described in paragraphs above,  18. No extra staff was necessary in both statistical and IT sections for system implementation and maintenance,

6 CONCLUSIONS  User interface is very user friendly and does not require special training neither on respondents’ side nor on CSB side,  Being developed as a part of Data Management System it can operate only with surveys described in the DMS common metadata base. In DMS there are 67 business statistics surveys at the time being,  Use of MS Internet Explorer is a restriction as well because a lot of enterprises are moving to open source software usage (Mozilla for instance),  Implementations of large surveys are problematic in existing EDC system version due to inconveniencies when scrolling the web form. This will be improved in the next version.

7 CONCLUSIONS  Sometimes respondents are suffering from unstable work of the communication channels or Internet services providers,  Hot telephone help desk had to be established in CSB and system administrator takes over the technical assistance functions especially in cases when respondent is not enough advanced to operate in internet or in quite often cases in IT environment,  It is not possible to fill in the same web form from several workstations or by several persons on respondent’ s side simultaneously.

Thank you for attention ! Karlis Zeila =