Page 379 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 4

CPS2315 Nele C.
interviewer (enumerator) has to work during the enumeration phase of the
census. Furthermore, today’s user community demands statistics to be
provided within a spatial context. To facilitate this, desktop and server-based
GIS solutions have become an important part of census data products and
dissemination.
Censuses are by far the costliest statistical data collection project in a
country. There is constant pressure on NSOs to improve efficiency while
cutting the costs associated with a census. Traditional desktop GIS software,
in combination with mobile GIS software, is the current standard in pre-
enumeration census mapping. Since the costs associated with desktop and
mobile GIS are determined by the numbers of users/licenses, it is usually
significant – especially in countries where large numbers of temporary GIS
operators and fieldworkers are deployed to do the work.
One license of HxGN Smart Census allows for unlimited users, resulting in
significant cost savings. Although it does not have all the functionality of a
high-end desktop and mobile GIS, HxGN Smart Census has all the GIS
functionality required to do pre-enumeration census mapping and more.
Raster and vector data are processed on the client side, rather than the server,
which enables sophisticated GIS functionality, including vector data capturing,
attributing, redlining, measuring, and querying, directly on the client. HxGN
Smart Census therefore eliminates the need for numerous sophisticated and
costly desktop and mobile GIS licenses.
HxGN Smart Census implies fewer desktop GIS licenses, but it does not
imply replacement of the entire current GIS infrastructure that may exist at an
NSO. Since it accesses any established spatial database server, such as Oracle
Spatial or SQL Server, HxGN Smart Census can be used together with any
desktop software, such as GeoMedia or ArcGIS. This is a huge advantage to
NSOs where there is already an established GIS infrastructure and expertise on
a particular platform. The status quo can either be retained with the addition
of HxGN Smart Census to provide the increased software capacity required for
the large temporary census workforce, or desktop GIS licenses that are no
longer required can be replaced by HxGN Smart Census.
Although desktop and mobile GIS software have all the functionality
required for census mapping, they have limitations when it comes to handling
and managing project-specific workflows. This is a huge challenge which often
requires use of a range of (usually unrelated) tools to establish and manage
workflows. This leads to problems such as variances in interpretation of the
methodology by different users and data integration issues that emerge as a
direct result of using a set of disparate tools. Ultimately, it introduces
unnecessary complexity that has a negative impact on data quality while
increasing the overall risks associated with the project.

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