Study tours

Completed study tours

Study tour to INSEE, Paris, France
24-25 May 2011

The overall objective was to study INSEE’s practices in the areas of compiling SUT and annual and quarterly national accounts. The specific objectives were to study INSEE’s data sources for the compilation of SUT and national accounts (statistical surveys and the use of administrative data sources), the SUT balancing procedures, and interaction between the Supply and Use Tables, national and satellite accounts.

The most important findings and conclusions from the study visit to INSEE could be summarized as follows:

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Study tour to the National Institute of Romania

The objectives of the study tour were to enable SORS team to sharpen their understanding of methodological and organisational aspects of Agricultural Census (AC) including AC data processing and benchmarking state of the art of the Statistical Farm Register.

1. Methodological issues:

• Which principle was used to ensure coverage of all agricultural holdings and agricultural land, especially agricultural land for which the holder cannot be identified
• Treatment of non-response
• Data dissemination program: contents of the publications on preliminary and final results

2. Organizational issues:

• Methods and sources used for establishing the list of the agricultural holding surveyed under the AC as well as method chosen for collecting data for legal units, entrepreneurs and family holdings
• Data monitoring program during the field registration. Number of people involved their responsibilities etc.
• Assessment of data coverage.

3. Data processing system issues:

• Methods of  checking during data entry
• Contingency control
• Logical and computing control and principles chosen for data correction.

4. Control survey methodology applied by Romania: program, type of enumerators involved coverage publications on preliminary and final results

5. Data dissemination program: contents of the publications on preliminary and final results

6. Farm register:

• Main principles applied for establishing the Romanian SFR.
• Methodology applied for updating and integrating the SFR into the system of national statistical agricultural surveys

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Study tour to Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, 24-25 August 2010

The objectives of the study tour were to benchmark current and forthcoming development areas under the dissemination and communication field , i.e. to study and learn from the applied Slovenian practises in these areas:

1. Organisational issueson data dissemination system.
2. Responsibilities, data dissemination strategies, policies, working procedures, tools for data dissemination services.
3. Policy for online dissemination.
4. Back office activities on data dissemination.
5. Pricing policy for chargeable and free of charge data dissemination.
6. Relationship with media
7. Website: designing, maintenance and updating flow with statistical figures
8. Online statistical databases for dissemination
9. Online Metadata and Statistical Classification databases\

The ideas and experiences about dissemination and communication strategy, release policy, website designing, statistical database for dissemination and online metadata, obtained from Slovenian Statistics will be very helpful for SORS's current and future work.  

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Study tour to Statistics Portugal, 28 – 30 June 2010

The objectives of the study tour:

Organisational and methodological aspects of an agricultural census

1. Agricultural statistical system and previous censuses conducted in Portugal
2. Institutional arrangements: role and tasks of the administrative bodies in carrying out the census, Portuguese experience
3. General Plan of the census: stages and timetable of activities
4. Organizational and methodological issues
   • setting up the list of the holdings that will be surveyed in the agricultural census (threshold applied, methods and sources used, updating criteria, etc.)
   • organization of the enumeration areas
   • attributions and tasks of the national and regional census coordination bodies
5. Census tools – general overview
   • questionnaire
   • enumerator’s Handbook
   • auxiliary materials
6. Methodological solutions concerning:
   • identification of a holding
   • registering of common land
7. The analysis of the solutions adopted by Statistics Portugal for the Survey on Agricultural
   Production Methods:
   • structure of the questionnaire
   • selected indicators
   • elaboration of output tables
8. Promotion activities for the Agricultural Census (planning, tools, advertising materials,
   implementation etc.)

Data collection and processing

1. Data collection and data processing solutions for 2009 Agricultural Censuses in Statistics Portugal
2. IT Data processing according to stages of activity:

• hardware and software used
• data entry (applications, number of operators, time needed)
• data editing (type (automatic, probabilistic, manual), applications, number of operators,  
  time needed)
• data dissemination organization and tools used (tabulation, website)

photo gallery

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Study tour to National Statistical Institute of Romania,

27 – 30 April, 2010.

The objectives of the study tour were to acquire knowledge and additional experience by benchmarking the following areas:

1. National Statistical System in Romania and its organisational structure.
2. Statistical Law, Annual Plan of Activities - focus on data dissemination, news releases and the editorial plan of statistical publications.
3. Network of Statistical Information dissemination. Organisation and responsibilities, data dissemination strategy, working procedures.
4. Ways for data dissemination: free and chargeable
   • policy for free of charge and chargeable statistical information.
   • pricing policy for chargeable data dissemination.
   • tariffs, invoicing, working procedures. 
5. Tools for data dissemination services:
   • IT applications for querying online and offline statistical databases.
6. Website: design, administration and maintenance.
7. Online statistical databases: Tempo online, CPI, SDI, Population and Dwellings Census:
   • organisation, structure, updating, administration applications.
8. Metadata database and Statistical Classification database:
   • architecture, structure, content, concepts.
9. Media - NIS relationship:
   • policy for NIS Media relationship.
   • rules in issuing a Press Release.
   • policy for data dissemination to mass media channels.
10. The editorial plan of statistical publications.

photo gallery

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Study tour to Statistics Finland, 12 – 14 October, 2009

The study tour performed for the representatives from SORS were targeted to gain skills by exchanging experiences with the counterparts of the Statistics Finland about the following:

1. Organizational structure of ICT services and its place in the overall organizational structure of the Statistics Finland.

2. IT infrastructure, PC's, servers LAN, WAN. Software systems in Statistics Finland for production, administration and management.

3. The main reasons for migration from Mainframe platform usage and maintenance in Statistics Finland:
   • migration benefits and losses
• migration of applications to PC platform, procedures, defining priorities, testing period, problems, required skills and training, needed help
• Used system software and software for statistical data processing in new environment
• migration of archived data from mainframe to PC platform, procedures, programs for data transformation, needed storage, naming standards, documentation (lists) of datasets on new platform, problems, required skills, training, needed help
• used system software and hardware for storage solutions
• ensuring security level on new platform.
4. Electronic data collection – Finland solutions and experience.
5. Technological solutions for Censuses in Statistic Finland.
6. Statistics Finland website, data dissemination organization and tools used.

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Study tour to Statistics Austria, 21- 23 September, 2009

The main purpose of the study tour was the exchange of experience on IT solutions that will help SORS in developing an efficient IT environment and statistical data management system within the frame of this project. SORS is preparing a feasibility study and on the basis of that will be taken the main decision which platform to use in future. The reason why Statistics Austria has been chosen to be visited is because they use two platforms, mainframe and PC server’s platform. It was very useful for SORS experts to get a wider picture about development and further maintenance of the both platforms. There are many issues that should be taken into account in order to find a cost-efficient IT solution at SORS.

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Study tour to National Statistical Service of Greece (NSSG), 7–11 September 2009

The main goal of the conducted study tour was to allow participants from SORS to gain skills by exchanging experiences with the counterparts of the National Statistical Service of Greece on the subject of aligning national accounts with ESA 95. Our Key Expert Mr Nikolaos Mylonas assisted SORS participants and ensured a smooth realisation of the entire study visit. The study visit assisted participants in understanding the following core subject area:

• compilation of Supply and Use Tables (SUT) in the alignment with ESA 95 and revised ESA 2008

• review of Greek statistical surveys and analysis of questionnaires for the NA purposes.

• data sources about local units (establishments) of companies and kind of activity units (KAUs) - Business register survey (methodology, analysis of questionnaire, data processing and integration etc.).

• methods and sources used for the compilation of Regional Accounts (RA)

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Study tour for participation at the 57th ISI Session in Durban, South Africa,

14 – 23 August 2009

The purpose of the study tour was to support SORS management team to attend the forthcoming 57th ISI Session.
The participation enabled SORS management team to establish a close links with corresponding staff from other National Statistics agencies, researchers and academic communities worldwide who were attending the ISI Session and also to gain knowledge about new developments, in the field.

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Study tour to Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia (CSB), 27- 31 July 2009

The main goal of the conducted study tour to Latvia supported SORS IT personnel to gain skills by exchanging experience with counterparts of the CSB, Latvia. The specific organization was selected since it was the first National Statistical Office which developed and implemented metadata driven integrated statistical data management system for economic statistics production. Key Expert Mr Karlis Zeila assisted SORS participants and ensured a smooth realisation of the entire study visit.
During the study tour SORS experts had the opportunity to learn about:

• organisational structure of ICT services and its place in the overall organizational structure of the CSB of Latvia,

• IT infrastructure, PC’s, servers LAN, WAN. Software systems in CSB for production, administration and management,

• integrated Metadata Driven Statistical Data Management System (ISDMS) - approach, development, maintenance,

• ISDMS Electronic Survey subsystem – statistical data collection via WEB,

• Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing System (CAPI) – development, implementation, maintenance,

• Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing System (CATI) – development, implementation, maintenance,

Consumer Price Statistics data collection using Palmtop computers,

• documents scanning and Optical Characters Recognition System for censuses,

• CSB Intranet solution – Electronic Administration and Documents Management,

• Time reporting and financial management in CSB of Latvia,

• CSB website and data dissemination organisation and tools used.

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