Metadata and quality Hans Viggo Sæbø, Statistics Norway

What is Quality? ”Satisfy the customers needs and expectations at a competitive price” (Deming) Brief: ”Conformance to requirements” or ”fitness for use”

Quality and metadata The users define quality What is quality in statistics? – Relevance and completeness – Timeliness and punctuality – Accuracy – Comparability and coherence – Accessibility and clarity Improvement requires improvements in processes Documentation (metadata) is necessary, both for the users and the producers

Total quality Process quality Product quality User needs “User needs” are the point of departure for systematic quality work and for determining quality indicators. The users demand “product quality” which encompasses desired attributes of the product. Costs must be taken into account. Study of processes is a precondition for improvement. This includes the identification and measurement of key process variables affecting product quality and costs.

Types of metadata (for quality management) Documentation for the users of statistics – Understand and use statistics correctly – Overview and navigation – Consider quality Documentation for data providers – Information needed to provide correct data Process documentation for producers – Information to control and improve processes – Current Best Methods and benchmarking Quality information (overlapping information for users and producers) Metadata = (Structured) documentation

Data flow and strategy of NSI

Examples Information for users: About the statistics etc. Process information Quality information: Products and processes (overlapping information above)

Simplified process diagram for editing of CPI data Data from scanned questionnaires Duplication and registration control Imputation Identification of extreme values Macro controls Identification of extreme values Reading and organising data Data base for dissemination Approved? Data from scanned bar codes Data to be used next period Data from previous period Yes Sub-indices from special surveys No

Quality information – about products EXAMPLE: Timeliness

Quality information - about processes EXAMPLE: Response rates in Statistics Norway

Conclusions Many different approaches and metadata exist, user friendliness vary Different needs (of external and internal users) have to be the point of departure for metadata approaches The different needs can be taken care of by different metadata systems, or by different levels of (the same type of) metadata for different users Systematic approaches should be promoted