1. ESS Vision 2020 Validation: Implementation of deliverables
DIME/ITDG SG meeting
Item 3
June 28th 2016

2. What is validation? ESS Methodological handbook on validation:
"Data Validation is an activity verifying whether or not a combination of values is a member of a set of acceptable combinations."
It is not:
An activity to check or assess process metadata: validation focuses on data
Editing or imputation: these are separate activities which may be performed based on the outcomes of validation
The ESS.VIP Validation took as a starting point for its activities the following definition given by the UNECE: Data validation is "an activity aimed at verifying whether the value of a data item comes from the given (finite or infinite) set of acceptable values."
Data validation is focused on checking the validity/consistency of data. Checking process or structural metadata is not within the scope of validation, though process or structural metadata may serve as input to validation procedures.

3. Focus of ESS.VIP Validation
Member
State
Eurostat
Validation can take place in several points of the ESS statistical production process

4. Current problems in ESS validation
No clear picture of who in the ESS is doing what as regards validation:
Risk of validation gaps
Time-consuming validation "ping-pong"
Subjective assessment of data quality
Lack of standards and of a common architecture for shareable and reusable validation services:
Duplication of IT development costs within the ESS
Manual work due to low integration between the different tools

5. 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

6. To-be situation

7. ESS.VIP Validation
The ESSC approved the ESS.VIP Validation project in November 2012 and gave the green light for the beginning of the execution phase in November The project ended in November Collaboration with the Member States was ensured through a Task Force during the course of 2014 and through an ESSnet (the ValiDat Foundation ESSnet) during the course of 2015.

8. Deliverables provided
Dimension
Deliverables
Methodology
ESS methodological handbook for validation
Standards
Standard ESS validation syntax (VTL)
Processes/Governance
Common validation policy IT
Prototype for a validation rule manager
Prototype for a structural validation service

9. Next steps: May ESSC conclusions
In May 2016, the ESSC approved a set of follow-up actions to the ESS.VIP Validation.
These actions focus on deploying into statistical production the deliverables of the ESS.VIP Validation.

10. Priorities for next steps
Medium-term goal 1
Short-term actions (up until Mid-2017)
Improvements to VTL 1.0 and piloting in statistical domains
Implementation of methodological handbook in statistical domains
Finalisation of Business Architecture
Medium-term actions (Mid-2017 onwards)
Decision gate on the suitability of the handbook and VTL for use in production.
Implementation of the Business Architecture

11. Priorities for next steps
Medium-term goal 1

12. Priorities for next steps
Medium-term goal 2
Short-term actions (up until Mid-2017)
Testing of available prototypes
Definition of requirements for shareable ESS validation services
Medium-term actions (Mid-2017 onwards)
Development of shareable ESS services

14. Collaboration with Member States
Two vehicles to collaborate with Member States
Task Force under Methodology Working Group supporting the deployment actions for medium-term goal 1
ESSnet
Extends deliverables for national implementations
Develops standard for validation reports

15. Validation Task Force
Validation Task Force crated by the WG Methodology in April First meeting took place on June
Objectives of the Task Force:
Monitoring the pilot implementation of the methodological handbook in statistical domains
Monitoring the pilot implementation of VTL in statistical domains
Finalising the Business Architecture

16. Pilot implementations in domains
5 pilot domains:
Energy
National Accounts
Asylum and managed migrations
International Trade in Services
Short Term Statistics

17. Focus on VTL – a bit of history
VTL 1.0 published in March 2015 (
In-depth assessment of VTL 1.0 carried out by the ValiDat Foundation ESSnet between April and December 2015
Several important comments raised on the design of the language, its user-friendliness and its implementability
VTL 1.1 in progress
Language extensions, reusability of rules, new features
SDMX implementation also in progress
Mapping of SDMX and VTL artefacts
Messages for exchanging rules, registry for storing rules
Web services for retrieving rules

18. Focus on VTL – next steps
Next milestone for the development of VTL: VTL 1.1
Draft release foreseen for July 2016 (public review)
VTL 1.1 will be improved in the following ways:
Introduction of high-level constructs to allow statisticians to easily express the most common validation rules
Delimitation and definition of a "core" of VTL
A more inclusive governance structure

19. Focus on VTL - timeline
July 2016: VTL 1.1 to be published for public review July-December 2016: "paper and pencil" pilots of VTL December 2016: Finalisation of VTL 1.1 based on public review Q1 2017: Decision gate on the use of VTL as a validation syntax for the ESS

20. Thank you for your attention!
Any questions?