1. The Challenges in compiling an Education Register in Iceland from multiple sources
Ásta M. Urbancic
A presentation at the ESSnet on Quality of Multisource Statistics Workshop, April 21-22, 2016

2. Reasons for register of completed education
Work first started as data were needed for the 2011 census
Previously only survey data were available on educational attainment
Work completed that was necessary for the census, many parts left undone
Admin project to complete the design of a statistical register of educational attainment and improve the data collection
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3. Sources for the new register
The main source is the Register of Graduations, with all formal graduations in Iceland from 1995
The baseline is data from the 1981 census, which was never published
Data gathered from other sources, like a jigsaw puzzle. Put bits and pieces together to make a more complete picture
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4. Additional sources – three groups
Graduates from schools before the start of the Register of Graduations in 1995
Licences for a particular occupation (e.g. from ministries, Directorate of Health)
Status at a particular point in time (e.g. Information on immigrants from the Directorate of Immigration, Information on recipients of unemployment benefits from the Directorate of Employment)
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5. Problems with available sources
Biggest problem is that many Icelanders have studied abroad so information on their education is missing
Information for immigrants is missing
Gap between 1981 (1981 census) and 1995 (start of register of graduations)
Conflicting information from one source to the next
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6. No common code for education
There was no single code for educational attainment – each source had its own code
A new national code for attainment level was developed in connection with the census
Many agencies and companies are now adding information on education to their personnel files
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7. Problems with quality in old data
All the data for the census were combined to check the quality and coverage
Do old data refer to students or graduates?
National ID number, not available in older data – matching on names or names and date of birth
Missing or faulty information, e.g. date of graduation
Limited information on education completed
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8. Problems with licence data
Little or no information on graduation date
Changes in qualification requirements through time (e.g. teachers, nurses)
Provide minimum qualifications to obtain licence
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9. Problems with status data
Different levels of information, education grouped into 3, 7 or 30 groups, reclassification needed
Little information on graduation date
Often little information on field of education
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10. How to fill the gap of education from abroad?
Get Registers Iceland to include education on forms completed by people moving to Iceland
Examine the possibility of other data channels, e.g. internet scraping, census or survey of immigrants or return immigrants
Exchange of data with other statistical institutes
Self declaration of education
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11. Problems with quality in the register
Relevance
Data providers have their own agenda
Accuracy
Will we accept bad information (alpha errors)?
Will we throw out good information (beta errors)?
Coverage
subpopulations not well covered (foreign graduations)
Coherence
are the results comparable with information from other sources, e.g., the labour force survey?
Comparability over time and space?
New classification applied to all data
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12. Main method for dealing with the quality issues
Development of deterministic data editing processes
Creation of rules or imputation to assign missing values
Creation of rules to prioritize certain sources rather than others
Decide how to select which records will be used as the highest attainment at a given time when there is more than one source with similar information
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13. Checks and corrections
Checks and corrections using other sources: National register of the population, Student register, StatIce sample surveys
Discrepancies in data checked: Comparison of birthdate, date of death and date of graduation
Recoding of education, sometimes from three groups (low, medium, high) to more detailed classification
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14. Work underway to run the register
Set up forms that insert the data collected in the future into a table connected to the education register
Set up translations for data collected from sources outside StatIce into the new classification of education, a translation for each source
Design of the register – how it will be set up
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15. Questions?
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