Abstract
Electronic data reporting (EDR) together with information communication technology (ICT) offers many possibilities to collect cheaper, timely and better quality data. At the same time it lowers the burden to the data respondent. But in order to achieve efficient EDR some needs are to be satisfied. In the following article projects running in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SORS) and experiences gained are presented.
The article concentrates on the strategies used to migrate research results into the production environment; it also deals with testing while maintaining the regular production, and coping with rapid changes in information technology. Three projects from the SORS are presented, also discussing problems and solutions. The first project (EDI-FIN) is from the field of electronic data collection, where data are taken directly from the enterprises' financial records using experiences and tools from the Eurostat TELER (TELER – TELematics for Enterprise Reporting, (http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/research/index.htm? http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/research/dosis/teler/&1).) project. QUESTOR is the second project related to the subject of maintaining the process of data management in the input division of SORS. The third project is related to the integrated approach of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and SORS in building the integrated web-based collection of data on upper secondary education. The abovementioned projects have exposed several management, organisational and policy issues. Some of them are: integration of the needs of several public institutions and possible future arrangements, problems of outsourcing the electronic data reporting (EDR) of NSIs, promotion of EDR and education of data respondents and internal staff, coping with transition period, challenges and possible obstacles for NSIs when understanding and using the current and future possibility of accessing data from electronic networks, data protection issues, etc.
The outline of the article is as follows. First, EDR and its influence on the regular work is presented, and the background of implementing EDR in SORS is introduced. The overall production process and infrastructure as groundwork for introducing EDR for statistical purposes is shown. Then three projects related to EDR in SORS are presented with some details. At the end experiences – good and bad – gained during these projects, are presented, and also some questions that need to be answered in the future are emphasized.