u nited n ations r egional s eminar on c ensus d ata d issemination and s patial a nalysis 14-17 s...

UNITED NATIONS REGIONAL SEMINAR ON CENSUS DATA DISSEMINATION AND SPATIAL ANALYSIS14-17 SEPTEMBER 2010, NAIROBI, KENYA

ROBERTO BIANCHINI, INTERUNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME, ITALY

USE OF TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS IN THE

DISSEMINATION OF CENSUS DATA

Some examples to make the census results available to the users

United Nations Regional Seminar on Census Data Dissemination

and Spatial Analysis

14-17 September, 2010 Nairobi, Kenya

1/31




Summary

1. Overview on census dissemination tools

2. census databases and interactive tools: - CensusInfo - CSPro - Redatam - PC-Axis - MSIS - Istar

3. Some suggestions for selecting census dissemination tools




1. Overview on dissemination tools

• Printed tables and reports

• Computer media (CD_ROMs, DVD-ROMs, USB drivers)

• Online dissemination: static web pages

census databases and web-based interactive tools for tabulating, analyzing and presenting data in graphs or in other formats

GIS web based mapping tools




2. census databases and interactive tools - CensusInfo

A software application for disseminating census results

Developed by the United Nations Statistics Division, in partnership with UNICEF and UNFPA, to help countries disseminate their census results at different geographical levels

It is based on DevInfo database technology with added specific functionalities to meet census dissemination requirements

Organizes data by indicators, time periods, and geographic areas with extensive metadata based on international standards

Contains a core set of census indicators with options to add country-specific indicators, and can be customized to meet country-specific requirements

Can import data from other applications, such as CSPro and Redatam, and generates user-defined standard reports, tables, graphs and maps

http://www.devinfo.info/censusinfo/




2. census databases and interactive tools - CensusInfo




2. census databases and interactive tools - CSPro

The Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro) is a software package used for entry, editing, tabulation, and dissemination of census and survey data

The data are stored in (ASCII) text files described by data dictionaries

CSPro allows to define and select variables to tabulate. Tabulations can be saved in several formats. Tables can be copied to spreadsheets or word-processing documents. It produces tables by geographic area, and map results by geographic area

Map Viewer is a module of CSPro that allows you to create, view and print thematic maps. It is not a GIS

CSPro was developed jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau, Macro International, and Serpro, SA, with major funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development

CSPro is in the public domain, www.census.gov/ipc/www/cspro and as commercial software (CSProX), http://www.serpro.com




Redatam is an acronym for REtrieval of DATA for small Areas by Microcomputer

Developed and maintained by the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE) - http://www.eclac.org/redatam/

It has modules for creating, managing, processing and disseminating very large hierarchical census and other databases

The user can define any area of interest in a database (such as city blocks) or any combination of areas, create new variables, obtain various types of tabulations, export outputs to other software and graphically display results

The data at different geographical levels can be combined hierarchically to create aggregated variables and the results shown on maps or transferred to a geographical information system (GIS)

WebServer, the latest module, is used for requesting information on-line from a Redatam database on an intranet, extranet or the Internet

2. census databases and interactive tools - Redatam




the Redatam+SP XPlan application for the 2008 population and housing census, developed using the Redatam platform Web server.

2. census databases and interactive tools - Redatam




2. census databases and interactive tools - PC-Axis

PC-Axis was originally designed for population census in Sweden and it is now supported by UNECE in the framework of a Consortium

The objective is to develop a common statistical data dissemination system in UNECE region. It is also integrated with the following modules:

• PX-Map is a Windows program which allows you to create maps

• PX-Make helps you to create PC-Axis files, by entering metadata

• PX-Edit is a tool for editing, manipulating and generating PC-Axis files

• PX-Web is a solution for the web. It works with PC-Axis files. PX-Web can also be a part of a solution with connection to SQL databases

http://www.pc-axis.scb.se/




Age

Year

Country

It is based on multidimensional cubes as requested by EU census hub


The Eurostat Census Hub project is based on the production of multi-dimensional tables (hypercubes) covering common census variables in all 27 member states of the EU.It uses the SDMX standards for data exchange




The outputs are:

-projecting cubes to tabular format- creating graphs- creating maps





MSIS is the joint UNECE / Eurostat / OECD Group on theManagement of Statistical Information Systems

•Business Tool Box•CoSSI•ISTAR•Jaxi•PC-Axis•PX-Map2•Remote Execution Environment for Microdata•SDMX ISTAT Framework•SDMX to Geospatial Coded and RDF Outputs•StatFlow•StatWeb

The project made available an inventory of software for statistical dissemination:http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/msis/7.2+Produce+dissemination+products

2. census databases and interactive tools - MSIS




2. census databases and interactive tools - ISTAR

Istar, is an open source approach to disseminate statistical data on the web developed by ISTAT, the Italian Institute of Statistics. It is planned to be used also for the 2011 population and housing census in Kosovo

It is an Integrated Output Management System for statistical data warehousing

It integrates not only data warehouses and metadata information systems, but also descriptive and textual information. The system offers a set of packages to extract data from statistical sources, transform them into other formats, load the data into statistical data warehouses or data banks and make the information available to many different users

Istar is a collection of tools specifically designed to support the statisticians in the several phases required to disseminate statistical aggregate data on the Web starting from a collection of validated data

The module for the access to the data via web (WebMD) was also developed in a open source environment

http://dawinci.istat.it/





The object of interest is the unit of analysis, e.g. resident population, residential density, percentage of population aged 65 and over, etc.

The classifications correspond to the statistical characteristics used to classify the units of analysis





The territory represents the spatial reference of the data

The year is the time reference of the data





The folder Tables contains the list of all tables corresponding to the previously performed selections

The geographic component of the application is under development.

The module WebMD allows also to navigate interactively among different pages in order to select different tables without starting the procedure from the beginning




3. Some suggestions for selecting census dissemination technological tools

Developing cooperation with other statistical organizations, creation of regional groups to harmonize data outputs

Maximizing involvement of statisticians to develop statistical products and minimizing involvement of software resources

Preferring open source software

Keeping balance between own IT staff at the NSO and outsourcing




THANK YOU for your attention!

[email protected]

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