1. Towards a European validation architecture
ValiDat Foundation ESSnet Workshop
Wiesbaden, November 2015

2. 1800: Creation of the Bureau de statistique
1812: Suppression of the Bureau de statistique

3. Je les ai comparés entre eux pour prendre la moyenne des résultats; et lorsque je les ai jugés insuffisants ou défectueux, j’ai cherché à les compléter ou à les vérifier, en m’adressant aux autorités locales, aux sociétés d’agriculture, et aux personnes instruites qui pouvaient me fournir d’utiles renseignements.
I compared them to obtain the mean of the results; and when I deemed them to be insufficient or faulty, I tried to complete them or to verify them, by consulting with the local authorities, with the agricultural societies, and with educated persons who could provide me with useful information.
Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Minister of the Interior

4. Since then…

5. But the validation issue remains!
Since then…
But the validation issue remains!

6. Current problems in ESS validation
No clear picture of who in the ESS is doing what as regards validation
Risk of double-work in NSIs and Eurostat or validation gaps
Time-consuming validation "ping-pong"
Subjective assessment of data quality

7. Current problems in ESS validation
Lack of standards and of a common architecture makes it difficult to create shareable and reuseable IT services within the ESS
Duplication of IT development costs within the ESS
Manual work due to low integration between the different tools

8. Medium-term goals for ESS validation
Business Outcomes
Goal 1: Ensure the transparency of the validation procedures applied to the data sent to Eurostat by the ESS Member States.
Increase in the quality and credibility of European statistics
Reduction of costs related to the time-consuming validation cycle in the ESS ("validation Ping-Pong")
Goal 2: Enable sharing and re-use of validation services across the ESS on a voluntary basis.
Reduction of costs related to IT development and maintenance
The table shows the medium-term goals for validation in the ESS.
Goal 1 is about the transparency of the validation procedures applied to European statistics. Its scope is limited to the data sent to Eurostat by the Member States.
Goal 2 focuses on enabling the sharing of validation tools across the ESS. The scope of Goal 2 is therefore a bit wider, as Goal 2 envisions the possibility that common validation services also be used, strictly on a voluntary basis, for NSI-internal processes.
However, it is important to underline that the scope of the current ESS.VIP Validation is limited to providing the methodological and architectural frameworks needed to achieve the medium-term goals, notably through the creation of an ESS methodological handbook and the development, evaluation and piloting of the Validation and Transformation Language.
Implementation of the frameworks into production was not in the scope of the project.

13. ESS.VIP Validation – key focus areas High-level deliverables
Developments on five dimensions are needed to provide a complete framework for the implementation of the long-term objectives
Dimension
High-level deliverables
Methodology
Common definition, classifications and metrics for validation
Standards
Standard ESS validation syntax and validation reports IT
Common architecture for validation solutions and shareable services HR
Communication and training
Processes/Governance
Common validation policy

14. ESS.VIP Validation highlights
IT developments

15. Validation Rule Registry NSI production systems
Scenario 1
Member States receive the common rules and implement them in their own validation systems
Validation Rule Registry
ESS service platform
NSI environment
Data to be sent to Eurostat
Transmission to Eurostat
NSI production systems

16. Scenario 2
Member States use common ESS services in their process for validation
ESS service platform
Common ESS service
NSI environment
Transmission to Eurostat
Data to be sent to Eurostat
NSI production system
Common ESS service

17. Scenario 3 Member States use common ESS processes for validation
Common ESS service
ESS service platform
Common ESS service
NSI environment
Transmission to Eurostat
Data to be sent to Eurostat

18. Next steps
Methodology and Information Standards dimension: Piloting of the methodological handbook and continuation of language development
IT dimension: Definition of the possible interaction scenarios between the IT architecture envisaged by Eurostat and the national IT infrastructure (breakout groups)
Processes/Governance dimension: Development of common ESS validation policy
VTL is a potential standard syntax for validation created by the SDMX Sponsors. The aim of VTL is to provide an unambiguous language to communicate validation rules between different statistical organisations.
Through the ESS.VIP Validation Eurostat contributed to the development of VTL 1.0, which was published in March 2015.
The ESS.VIP Validation has also conducted a pilot translation of validation rules into VTL in selected domains (i.e. SIMSTAT, Animal Production Statistics, National Accounts coming soon). Through the ESSnet, the ESS.VIP Validation is also conducting a thorough review of VTL to see whether it can meet the criteria for a standard ESS validation language.

19. Thank you for your attention!
Any questions?