Towards a European validation architecture ValiDat Foundation ESSnet Workshop Wiesbaden, 10-11 November 2015

1800: Creation of the Bureau de statistique 1812: Suppression of the Bureau de statistique

Je les ai comparés entre eux pour prendre la moyenne des résultats; et lorsque je les ai jugés insuffisants ou défectueux, j’ai cherché à les compléter ou à les vérifier, en m’adressant aux autorités locales, aux sociétés d’agriculture, et aux personnes instruites qui pouvaient me fournir d’utiles renseignements. I compared them to obtain the mean of the results; and when I deemed them to be insufficient or faulty, I tried to complete them or to verify them, by consulting with the local authorities, with the agricultural societies, and with educated persons who could provide me with useful information. Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Minister of the Interior 1801 - 1804

Since then…

But the validation issue remains! Since then… But the validation issue remains!

Current problems in ESS validation No clear picture of who in the ESS is doing what as regards validation Risk of double-work in NSIs and Eurostat or validation gaps Time-consuming validation "ping-pong" Subjective assessment of data quality

Current problems in ESS validation Lack of standards and of a common architecture makes it difficult to create shareable and reuseable IT services within the ESS Duplication of IT development costs within the ESS Manual work due to low integration between the different tools

Medium-term goals for ESS validation Business Outcomes Goal 1: Ensure the transparency of the validation procedures applied to the data sent to Eurostat by the ESS Member States. Increase in the quality and credibility of European statistics   Reduction of costs related to the time-consuming validation cycle in the ESS ("validation Ping-Pong") Goal 2: Enable sharing and re-use of validation services across the ESS on a voluntary basis. Reduction of costs related to IT development and maintenance The table shows the medium-term goals for validation in the ESS. Goal 1 is about the transparency of the validation procedures applied to European statistics. Its scope is limited to the data sent to Eurostat by the Member States. Goal 2 focuses on enabling the sharing of validation tools across the ESS. The scope of Goal 2 is therefore a bit wider, as Goal 2 envisions the possibility that common validation services also be used, strictly on a voluntary basis, for NSI-internal processes. However, it is important to underline that the scope of the current ESS.VIP Validation is limited to providing the methodological and architectural frameworks needed to achieve the medium-term goals, notably through the creation of an ESS methodological handbook and the development, evaluation and piloting of the Validation and Transformation Language. Implementation of the frameworks into production was not in the scope of the project.

ESS.VIP Validation – key focus areas High-level deliverables Developments on five dimensions are needed to provide a complete framework for the implementation of the long-term objectives Dimension High-level deliverables Methodology Common definition, classifications and metrics for validation Standards Standard ESS validation syntax and validation reports IT Common architecture for validation solutions and shareable services HR Communication and training Processes/Governance Common validation policy

ESS.VIP Validation highlights IT developments

Validation Rule Registry NSI production systems Scenario 1 Member States receive the common rules and implement them in their own validation systems Validation Rule Registry ESS service platform NSI environment Data to be sent to Eurostat Transmission to Eurostat NSI production systems

Scenario 2 Member States use common ESS services in their process for validation ESS service platform Common ESS service NSI environment Transmission to Eurostat Data to be sent to Eurostat NSI production system Common ESS service

Scenario 3 Member States use common ESS processes for validation Common ESS service ESS service platform Common ESS service NSI environment Transmission to Eurostat Data to be sent to Eurostat

Next steps Methodology and Information Standards dimension: Piloting of the methodological handbook and continuation of language development IT dimension: Definition of the possible interaction scenarios between the IT architecture envisaged by Eurostat and the national IT infrastructure (breakout groups) Processes/Governance dimension: Development of common ESS validation policy VTL is a potential standard syntax for validation created by the SDMX Sponsors. The aim of VTL is to provide an unambiguous language to communicate validation rules between different statistical organisations. Through the ESS.VIP Validation Eurostat contributed to the development of VTL 1.0, which was published in March 2015. The ESS.VIP Validation has also conducted a pilot translation of validation rules into VTL in selected domains (i.e. SIMSTAT, Animal Production Statistics, National Accounts coming soon). Through the ESSnet, the ESS.VIP Validation is also conducting a thorough review of VTL to see whether it can meet the criteria for a standard ESS validation language.

Thank you for your attention! Any questions?