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Education Data and SDMX

Towards Implementation of SDMXJanuary 9 – 11, 2007, World Bank, Washington D.C.

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Part of a broad UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) effort to improve quality and timeliness

UNESCO

• Responsible agency for international education statistics

• Responsible agency for International Standard Classification for Education Statistics (ISCED).

Scope of cooperative project on SDMX and Education

• Administrative data collections (international data)

• Shared processing among UNESCO, OECD, Eurostat

Introduction

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Actors in the system of international education data collections

Who collects data: International agencies cooperating as data requester

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

» Scope: All countries world wide (200+ countries)

• OECD

» OECD member states, partner countries (34 countries)

• EUROSTAT

» EU Member, EEA countries, Candidate countries, Western Balkan countries (35 countries)

Who provides data: National agencies nominated by country

» Ministries of Education (up to 3 different ministries!)

» National statistical offices

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The UNESCO-UIS / OECD / EUROSTAT (UOE) Data Collection on Education Statistics

• EXCEL based questionnaire, organized in 31 work sheets• 47 countries, 14,000+ data points• Processing of countries split by organizations

The World Education Indicators Project (WEI)• Based on UOE Instruments, extended by 10 work sheets• 16 countries , >15,000+ data points• Processed by UIS• Examples at www.uis.unesco.org/publications/wei2006

The UIS Survey• Pdf based E-Questionnaire infrastructure, plus paper form• All remaining countries, 5,000+ data points• Processed by UIS• Examples at www.uis.unesco.org -> current surveys

Instruments used in the system of international education data collections (I)

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The world of international education data collections

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The world of international education data collections

Each of the international organizations has its own data and indicator release

• OECD

» Education at a Glance,

• EUROSTAT

» Key figures in Education, New Cronos

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics

» UIS Web dissemination

» Global Education Digest

» Distribution to third parties

– Education for all, MDGs, World bank WDI, Human Development Index, ….

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Instruments used in the system of international education data collections (II)

UOE

i ii i i

i i

UIS

Can be transformed

Can be transformed

WEI

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The UOE data requester

• design the questionnaire in cooperation

• Co-ordinate the e-mail dissemination of instruments

National agencies submit completed forms to a joint e-mail address, that forwards data to the 3 data requester

OECD processes OECD countries; EUROSTAT processes residual EU-interest countries; UIS processes residual countries

The UOE data requester

• exchange processed data

• produce and review statistics separately

• release results

The UOE - Collect together, disseminate separately

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Collect together, disseminate separately

Country

E-mail hub

OECD

Data Processing

UIS

Calculation and Dissemination

EUROSTAT

OECD

Processed data

UIS

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Communication with countries

Updates• Countries submit updates to one or more organizations• Version control• Integration with already processed data

Data Verification and quality assurance• Different organizations focus on different sub-sets of data for their

publications: Data verification is inconsistent and of different intensity for different sub-sets.

Punctuality • Different organizations work on different schedules: data are not readily

processed by one organization for punctual use by another

Challenges

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IT• Handling of different and ever changing Instruments• Transformation of UOE data to UIS data

Dissemination• Different methodology in calculation of similar indicators• Use of different economic or population data for identical statistics

Challenges

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Why SDMX?

Implications for stakeholders

• The data provider

• The international agency receiving and processing the data

• The other two international agencies dependent upon the data

• The consumer (international report, international agency)

What would an SDMX solution look like?

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Impact on Data Providers

International Agency

Data Collection and Verification

NSO, Education Ministry, or

Responsible Institute

National International

EXCEL (via email)

SDMX-MLor

EXCEL (via email)

· Able to import/export data from questionnaires;

· Compare responses across years;

· Auto-generate complete or partial responses;

· Improve metadata provision

· IT components reusable across domains

· Etc.

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Impact on International Org. receiving the data

International Agency

Data Collection and Cleaning

QuestionnaireData

CleanData

International

FinalClean Data

Respondent Data

EXCEL from other

agencies via Email

EXCEL to other

agencies via Email

DuplicateData

DuplicateData

NSO, Education Ministry, or

Responsible Institute

National

SDMX-MLor

EXCEL

SDMXRepository

------Final

Clean Data

SDMXRepository

-------Respondent

DataData Collection

andVerification

QuestionnaireData

(SDMX-ML)

CleanData

(SDMX-ML)

International

UpdateMessage(Software

actionable)

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Impact on International Orgs (2)

Dissemination

International Agency

Production Processing

International

SDMXRepository

------Final

Clean Data

SDMXRepository

-------Respondent

Data

UNESCO – to create world view

UOE data

FinalClean Data

FinalClean Data

WEI data UIS data

Duplicate&

Possibly Inconsistent

Data

Duplicate&

Possibly Inconsistent

Data

Final clean data from all 3 agencies

SDMXRepository

------Final

Clean Data

SDMXRepository

-------Respondent

Data

SDMXRepository

------Final

Clean Data

SDMXRepository

-------Respondent

Data

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No visible or obvious changes from a data management perspective;

Data will have greater coherence across agencies;

Metadata will be more available;

Concepts and methods should be more harmonious;

Data will be of a higher quality;

Timeliness will be improved;

Impact on the users of Statistics (external)

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All education questionnaires and education outputs are being looked at and a conceptual data model is being developed;

The objective is to create a single DSD for all international education statistics (adhering to relevant standards);

The Data Structure Definition(s)

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Elimination of redundant and possibly inconsistent data

Improvements to timeliness and quality;

Efficiency gains – reallocation of resources to functions providing higher value

IT investment costs will be somewhat offset by elimination of other ongoing costs supporting the current environment; investment considered strategic

Our role in the international statistical system imposes upon us the need to work on a DSD for Education.

Risks

The technical risks are low. The IT aspects have been done before with other SDMX projects – and are generally not unique to SDMX.

This is the first social statistics project for SDMX.

The necessary changes to business processes may be difficult to effect.

Is there a Business Case?

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UNESCO dissemination via SDMX to key institutional stakeholders in 2008

Transform the current dissemination model from a ‘push’ model to a ‘pull’ model.

Future Plans?

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Brian Buffett (b.buffett@uis.unesco.org)

&

Michael Bruneforth (m.bruneforth@uis.unesco.org)

Thanks