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The Client
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the statistical branch of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UIS produces the data and methodologies to monitor trends at national and international levels, and delivers comparative data for countries at all stages of development to provide a global perspective on education, science and technology, culture and communication. Established in 1999, UIS serves Member States, UNESCO and the UN system, as well as a range of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, research institutes and universities.
The Challenge
To respond to emerging needs for information and to maintain the UNESCO international database, which holds data for more than 200 countries and territories, the UIS collects data through five annual and two biennial questionnaires in Arabic, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Traditionally, this process was labor intensive and time consuming.
Questionnaires were processed manually, data collected via spreadsheets required formatting and manipulation, surveys needed to be translated into multiple languages, and internationalization concerns needed to be addressed for each questionnaire. Moreover, translators needed to know how to directly edit and program the spreadsheets in order to accurately present their translations.
Making this process even more complex, a new version of an additional standalone application, Quest, had to be developed for each questionnaire. Based on Borland C++, Quest provided a digital representation of a questionnaire, but was error prone, not multilingual, costly and difficult to maintain, and would only function on the Microsoft® Windows® platform.
To streamline the process and improve the efficiency of survey production, dissemination, and processing, the UIS sought to implement a solution that could be administered centrally, but distributed internationally with little or no manual intervention.
The Solution
In an effort to achieve this goal, the UIS looked to Ensemble to develop a solution that consolidated survey preparation, data collection, and post-processing analysis into a single location. The resulting web-based application allows client countries to obtain questionnaires electronically, primarily via offline interaction with downloaded PDF documents, or online interaction with HTML web pages. Completed surveys are submitted directly to the server, providing a centralized collection point from which statistical analysis can proceed; analysis that can now draw from rich metadata that we previously unavailable.
Questionnaire documents are maintained as XDP template files, which can be generated into PDF and HTML representation. In conjunction with on-the-fly server-side manipulation of generated HTML, the solution was able to realize identical behaviors in PDF and HTML for the purposes of complex error handling, per-field comment annotations, and automatic totaling.
To augment the solution even further, Ensemble implemented a translation engine to minimize the effort associated with translating and localizing survey forms. This was accomplished by creating translations via server-side tools that directly extract all visible text from an XDP template and look up translations for the desired language via a Lexicon web service. The Lexicon is continually monitored such that translation “misses” are noted and sent out to human translators, after which the Lexicon is updated.
To augment the solution even further, Ensemble implemented a translation engine to minimize the effort associated with translating and localizing survey forms. This was accomplished by creating translations via server-side tools that directly extract all visible text from an XDP template and looks up translations for the desired language via a Lexicon web service. The Lexicon is continually monitored such that translation “misses” are noted and sent out to human translators, after which the Lexicon is updated.
The Bottom Line
Ensemble implemented the infrastructure to define and edit the surveys as well as the machinery to render PDFs dynamically, creating a single point of maintenance, and significantly reducing the development time and effort required for survey generation. In addition, the questionnaires are available to be used on a web browser or any machine or operating system that supports the ubiquitous Adobe® Reader®, which contrasts favorably with previous spreadsheet-based and stand alone solutions, such as Quest, that were only available on specific versions of Microsoft Windows or had to be downloaded by user countries.
The translation and internationalization process has been greatly improved. Translators no longer need any survey development skills, and because of the implementation of the Lexicon web service, human translators need only get involved in the process when the Lexicon picks up translation “misses.” Similarly, the reuse of terms and concepts and error checks makes the production of new surveys much more efficient.
Survey developers can focus entirely on the development of the specialized data processing, analyses, and dissemination tools, creating a much more streamlined and efficient workflow. In addition, user countries can respond more quickly via an integrated ‘Submit’ button, and submitted response data is persisted centrally as simple, easy to access XML data that is readily amenable to understanding and further processing.
The UIS is now able to implement PDF versions of all questionnaires, no matter the size or language, in a much reduced timeframe and at a manageable cost. This capability has increased the UIS’s capability to capture data and respond to new data collection needs without commanding additional resources, and has significantly improved the services offered to data providers. Going forward, the solution will enable the UIS to take on more survey work than could have been managed previously, and allow them to focus on additional improvements to their specialized internal systems. |
Client
Technologies
Website
uis.unesco.org
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Case Study as PDF
“The UIS recognized that there were significant barriers to increasing the use of our electronic collection tools by national partners and extending the tools to additional data collections using our existing approach. With Ensemble’s help we were able to modernize our data collection infrastructure. We have been able to scale up our use of electronic data capture, improve the services that we offer to our data providers, and increase both the timeliness and quality of data that we publish. At the same time we have been able to refocus scarce resources on improving our specialized statistical systems.
In short, our usage of LiveCycle enabled us to increase our data collection beyond what was previously possible and allowed us to focus on improving the systems that are at the heart of what we do.”
Mark Falvo, IT Technical Officer, UNESCO Institute for Statistics |
