Providing greater detail from household and other surveys to the public was the aim of a five day consultation for statistics developers, using new meta data software.
Held at the Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi Building, ending last Friday, the training brought together data workers from key ministries, focusing on household surveys.
“What we do is help the producers of statistical information,” said Gaye Parcon, Regional Coordinator for Asia from I.H.S.N., the International Household Survey Network.
The program is a joint project with I.H.S.N., the World Bank and O.E.C.D., the Organization for Economic Corporation and Development.
“We help in disseminating and making this information more available to the public so there would be an increased utilisation of this information since, most often, a lot of resources are invested in data collection.”
“Before we disseminate data, it must also be accompanied by proper information, like what these data are, how these are collected or descriptions of this data so that the users can be properly guided.”
Training was given in the Metadata Editor, free software that produces statistics that are fully compliant with the Data Documentation Initiative, which attempts to produce information to the same structure and standards worldside.
“This software was developing by the International House Survey Network (IHSN) primarily to facilitate the sharing of statistical information on the website and this is given out to distribute for free.
“This is also using open source software so that means they will not have to worry about licenses ever and in fact the users can customise it to their own specific needs.
“For example, you have the National University of Samoa here and if they decide to use the software an academic institution may have different needs from government statistical agencies.”
Local health organisations are another example of groups that are able to adapt the software to their requirements.
I.H.S.N introduced the software to the region in 2010 through the Secretariat of the Pacific Community with S.P.C. organising a workshop for Pacific Islands members in 2012.
Samoa is the first national workshop the network has conducted.
“So upon the invitation of the Samoa Bureau Statistics we came over as they organised this workshop and invited participants from other agencies such as MCIL, MWCSD, SQA, not just SBS,” she said, referring to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour, the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, the Samoa Qualifications Authority and the Samoa Bureau of Statistics.
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Ms. Parcon said the training was not difficult because everyone spoke English. “We go into different countries who speak little English and so we use interpreters in those cases.”
Feedback confirmed that the software would be useful, she said.
“We have conducted meetings with the users on Tuesday and early Thursday morning and the response we got is that it will benefit the public of Samoa and the whole community, not just those in the government jobs.
“By hosting Metadata or descriptions about the data online, on the web, it opens information to the general public of what is available in the agencies, because, so far, so much information is there but the public do not know that it is there.
“So that’s the first thing and they also get to understand how they do it, for example S.B.S. reports, something like employment figures, the general public gets to understand how they come up with those figures.”
Metadata explains how they conduct surveys, who do they ask, what questions they need to ask, she said.
She also said that metadata is the description for microdata.
“What you commonly see in the reports are tabular reports like summaries and statistics.
“Micro data is going lower, so we don’t just look at aggregates, say Apia or regions of Apia, but we can lower to the response in Apia, so whether there are any households or businesses.
“But of course we have to employ methods to keep the identity of this response confidential,” she said.
“We cannot divulge. If I answer the survey, I don’t want you to know that I answered the survey, so for those things, we employ techniques, statistical techniques, to keep the responses confidential.
“So what I’m hoping to get from this training is to see the metadata on the Samoa Bureau Statistic website.
“The direct output would be to see those Meta Data on the S.B.S. website, but the final outcome is to increase circulation of data like more researchers using the data, because once we enrich the research community then the benefit will all go back to the people.”
The I.H.S.N. website about page states that the mission of the network is to improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of survey data within developing countries, and to encourage the analysis and use of this data by national and international development decision makers, the research community, and other stakeholders.
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