USE OF MODERN COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY IN LARGE SCALE SURVEYS

The purpose of this presentation is to review and discuss the potentials of present and anticipated computing technology for the production of official statistics and large-scale surveys, i.e. the work in the national statistical organizations. The computer technology will probably be the single factor having most impact on the development of statistical production in the first part of the next century. The computing technology is also expected to contribute more than anything else to fill the gaps between statistical systems in industrial and developing countries. 2. Technology We will distinguish between soft and hard computer technologies. In the last 50 years, the development of hard technology, i.e. the physical equipment has been far ahead of the development of soft technology, i.e. the systems and programs, needed to make full use of the hardware. +DUGWHFKQRORJ\ The development of the PC from the early 1980’s to the current powerful workstations/ servers is the first technical precondition for the present use of computer technology in statistical processing. A modern workstation of 1999 has both processing speed and storage capacity far above that of the big mainframes first introduced in production of official statistics [Daly an