ENCODING TOOL DEVELOPED BY HUNGARY Márta Záhonyi Hungarian Central Statistical Office Hungarian Central Statistical Office

The past Previous practice of encoding of occupation Encoding by interviewers and encoders after interviewing Recording by data entry operators from the paper questionnaire Encoding materials used: 4-digit system of the classification of occupations Correspondence table between HSCO and ISCO Hungarian Central Statistical Office

The present The reasons for changing method Introduction of new classification To improve the quality The elements of the new method Centralized group of encoders Encoding programme for occupation Hungarian Central Statistical Office

The present Data processing Paper and pencil survey Encoding and recording of the LFS information except for occupation are carried out in county offices according to procedure formerly used Export of occupational and some related variables from the closed data set to the encoding programme developed for encoding occupational entries Coding and recording occupation by the centralized group of encoders Consistency, coherency and plausibility analysis of the recorded data, corrections if needed Occupational variables are put back into the data base Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Centralized encoding started in 2011 4 encoders practiced in encoding and LFS Special 1 day consultation besides the general training Direct communication with the experts of the occupational classification and of LFS Coding materials available: Classification system, definitions and methodology guide of HSCO-08 and ISCO-08 Correspondence table between HSCO-08 and ISCO-08 Searching programme for job titles built in the encoding programme Searching programme on the web containing definitions as well Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Development of the encoding programme Developed by the IT Department of the HCSO in Blaise 4.5 Taking into account the professional aspects of the LFS the needs of encoders and the IT options, feasibility Hungarian Central Statistical Office

How does it work? In the first application window can be seen the records to be coded The records can be sorted by different variables, e.g. by occupations in alphabetical order Hungarian Central Statistical Office

How does it work? The next application window is the encoding interface itself with the following information: Occupation title Description of tasks and duties Other additional information (educational attainment, activity and size of the employer and local unit, rank, status in employment, supervisory responsibilities etc.) Hungarian Central Statistical Office

How does it work? Searching by text (job title) By default, the recorded occupational title appears in the searching field By pressing any key the searching window appears It contains 7 000 job titles Hungarian Central Statistical Office

How does it work? Searching by code Entering the code If the code has direct equivalent in ISCO-08, it is automatically recorded If it is not the case, the appropriate ISCO-08 code can be selected on the searching interface Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Warnings on screen Controlling at record level In-built consistency tests regarding relations between certain information Occupation and industry Occupation and size of the employer Occupation and supervisory responsibilities Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Comment field A text field where notes can be made by the encoders in connection with warnings revealed mistakes or inconsistency insufficient information (job titles) Analysis of the comments Provides useful information on interviewing, encoding and recording mistakes in the previous phase Feedback to the group of encoders (continuously) and to interviewers (periodically) Hungarian Central Statistical Office

Future Future plans and tasks Adaption of this encoding method for computer-aided data collection (CAPI) Improving the quality of occupational entries (interviewer) encoding (encoders) by monitoring and communication Completion of the list of job titles with further 7 thousand items (15 thousand) Hungarian Central Statistical Office