Online Program

The key role of metadata when building statistical production systems based on registers

Keywords: metadata, administrative registers, GSBPM, information model

Demands for new statistics and for producing existing statistics quicker and more efficiently while retaining high quality form one of Statistics Sweden´s main challenges. To achieve these results data need to be used effectively. Making better use of administrative sources to improve the register system is one of Statistics Sweden’s strategies to meet these challenges. The register system, at the core of the statistical production system, provides opportunities to produce new statistics or more of the regular statistics entirely based on registers or suitably combined with directly collected sample survey data. To facilitate this, an efficient production system is necessary, where information on the data that flow through the production process is documented, monitored and used for decisions. Hence metadata have a key role. The Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) provides a crucial framework for the development. In line with Statistics Sweden’s adopted data warehousing and register-coordination strategy, this paper gives examples of ideas about how to design a statistical information model. We will stress the central role of metadata in order to reach the vision.