Census 2006 goes online

This year is another census year, but it won’t be like previous ones: for the first time ever Canadians will be able to turn to the Internet to fill out the questionnaires that will be coming their way. The 2006 census gets underway on May 16, and the federal government agency responsible for the survey is putting the finishing touches on a Web application that will allow respondents to securely complete their questionnaires online. "We’re in the last stages of tuning and testing the application running it through some volume tests," says Anil Arora, director-general of Statistics Canada’s 2006 Census project. "After that, it’s a matter of setting it all up making sure all the codes are entered properly into the database and that it’s integrated nicely with the rest of our own systems. So, I think it’s so far so good." Performed every five years, the census "is the largest undertaking that the country ," Arora says, adding that "it’s a statistical undertaking, so on top of all the logistical challenges, we have to make sure that we do a good quality job of counting everybody in the country." This year Statistics Canada will mail out census questionnaires for the first time, so most residents of urban and semi-urban areas will have theirs delivered by Canada Post rather than enumerators going door-to-door. At the top of that census form is a 15-digit identification number; respondents who want to save return postage and a trip to the nearest mailbox can go to Statistics Canada’s census website, key in the number, and fill out their questionnaire online. Residents of rural areas will have their questionnaires delivered by enumerators. Statistics Canada is targeting a 20% participation rate for the online version, meaning it expects one out of every five Canadians to complete their form over the Internet. At six or seven minutes for each short questionnaire and 30 to 35 for the long version that will be delivered to 20% of the 12.7 million Canadian households, filling out the form takes roughly as long online as it does on paper. Where substantial savings will be realized, however, is in the time and cost it takes to collect and input millions of paper-based multi-page questionnaires, Arora says. The online form will also help gather more accurate data, as users will be prompted when questions are answered incompletely or incorrectly. If a page of the questionnaire containing errors is submitted, " comes back up with the fields in question highlighted," Arora says. "It’s standard practice on the Web." That capability means that Statistics Canada will get more accurate information sent back as a result than had previously been possible with a paper-only approach. When users log on to the 2006 Census online application, they’re connected directly to Statistics Canada’s back-end database via a bi-directional secure channel, a conduit in which both the information and the pipe it’s traveling are safeguarded by a 1,024-bit encryption algorithm. "Nobody has access to that data between your computer and our database here – it is more secure than most...online transactions" which typically feature 128-bit encryption, he says. Users completing the long-form questionnaire can also set up a second password in case they’re called away from the computer in the middle of filling out the form. In addition to preparing the application and questionnaire in both official languages, Statistics Canada’s census unit has also developed a version for the visually impaired that works with screen reader software, such St. Petersburg FL-based Freedom Scientific’s JAWS. Arora says Statistics Canada also consulted with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind when designing the questionnaire. "We’ve provided an application that tries as best we can ," he says. "It’s not ideal or perfect yet, but we’re certainly going to try and make it better in future censuses." While images and other multimedia content are kept to a minimum in order to conserve bandwidth – after all, Arora points out, this is a national undertaking to completed within a limited timeframe – users can get help from both an in-application FAQ page as well as a toll-free helpdesk. "We have to be ready for high volumes at any given time," he notes. "We want to make sure that the application is responsive, it works on a variety of speeds and browsers, so we’ve tried to keep it functional and make sure that people can efficiently complete the questionnaire." Canada isn’t the only country to try and move its census operations into the digital era: the United States launched its first online census program in 2000, and New Zealand is currently in the middle of wrapping up its first Internet-enabled effort, to name just two examples. In the former case, however, the results have been mixed: "they really didn’t promote it…so their response was negligible at best," Arora says. New Zealand targeted roughly the same participation rate that Statistics Canada is looking at, but the results are not yet in for that experiment. "We ran…a voluntary test in 2004, and we got about a 10% response rate without any publicity of the Internet option," he notes. While foreign experiences are instructional, Arora maintains that Canadians will take to the online option in large numbers and fulfill his expectations for a 20% participation rate. "Canadians are of the heaviest users of the Web…certainly in terms of online transactions and so on," he says. "I think at this stage Canadians expect there to be an online option."

Census 2006 goes online

News | 03/20/2006 5:00 am EST

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