streamlining the data compilation and dissemination at ilo department of statistics lessons learned...
DESCRIPTION
In May 2012, during MSIS 2012 meeting in Washington, DC, I made a presentation about the rationale behind the streamlining processes we had started at the ILO Department of Statistics, and made a brief description of the project to redesign the department’s approach that included not only the development of new applications using updated and appropriate tools to achieve the required functionality, but also changes in the procedures for data compilation. The new process for data compilation and dissemination has been built based on four main ideas: - The broadening of the ways of interaction with the countries for data collection; - The full automation of computerized procedures, so as to enable Statistical Assistants to engage more efficiently in non-computerized activities; - The systematization of the consistency and correction procedure regardless of the way the data was received; and - The ability to know when and why (or why not) data from the countries is arriving, thus knowing how much information is to be included in a publication. The new ILOSTAT database compilation procedures aims to have a better response rate from the countries, to reduce the delay of the information received and to improve the overall quality of the data published. After one year, and with more than 80% of the project completed, we have some experiences and lessons learned in the process regarding the implementation of changes in the procedures, IT applications developed, development tools, the reality of data providers, etc., that we would like to share.TRANSCRIPT
◦ MSIS 2012
◦ MSIS 2012
Lessons LearnedChanging the procedures
Application development
Current status
From Topic- to Country-centric approach
«Country specialists» assigned based on language and cultural affinity
Coverage increased compared to last 5 yearsEven with 72 indicators from 17 topics
Training needed, specially on new topics
CS requesting improvements in contacts management tool
Towards timely and comparable dataTimeliness has to be improved. What
was wrong?New questionnaire, broader and bigger
New topics
New IT tools, some under development
Comparability improvedAdhering to suggested breakdowns
Coded notes
Data quality improved thanks to extensive consistency checking
Towards timely and comparable dataFor next collection:Some indicators to be simplified
Some breakdowns to be simplified
New data channels available
Increase technical assistance to countries
Increase response rate
“The size of the accomplishment can be measured by
the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your
goals” – Booker T. Washington
Conceptual design of new collection took too long and put high pressure on development
An agile iterative-incremental development model was adopted to provide “ready-to-work” basic versions of the tools
Early adoption of a new software platform in the ILO was the cause of several delays
“Vamos más despacio, Sancho, que estoy apurado” –Don Quijote de la Mancha (Let’s go slower, Sancho, I’m in a hurry).
Some modules of the initial project were deferred because:eQuestionnaire: We privileged backoffice editing
tools aiming to efficiency and data quality
SDMX and csv upload: Many developing countries lack a repository of indicators as to easily generate the files in the format requested.
Knowing how it goes.
The Workflow Control Subsystem was misunderstood by the CS as a tool for controlling their work
After some time, they started to understand the usefulness of having real time information of contacts made and data status
Now they are providing feedback on improvements for the workflow dashboard reports
Task1
To BI or not to BI?
To BI or not to BI?ILOSTAT is based on Oracle technology platform (ILO
standard)
Dissemination based on WebCenter portal manager with OBI-EE for building the reports (Original idea)
Standard BI reports were not able to handle breakdown’s labels and footnotes properly
Star-schema datawarehouse did not provide any added value to the solution
Switched to ad-hoc reporting solution using ADF and a “flat” materialized view for dissemination
Valuable help from the official statistics community in sharing experiences
All you need is data…
Fully metadata driven website
Every navigation menu is contextual and is built dynamically
Avoid duplication of efforts in editing web pages
Minimize errors due to missed updates
Increased coverage
Improved timeliness
Improved quality
Reduced overburden
Standards based
Metadata driven
General purpose
29
1749
71
137165
4271,657
7,71930,121
78,916364,524~5,000,000
E-mail:[email protected]
Skype:egreising
Twitter: egreising
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/egreising
E-mail:[email protected]
Skype:egreising
Twitter: egreising
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/egreising
From Topic- to Country-centric approach
Knowing how it goes.
(country + user)
Qtable
(country + indic + survey)