Towards a Platform for Widespread Embedded Intelligence - ERCIM

Databases
Modular Access to Large Socio-Economic
Databases - the Sedo Project in Luxembourg
by Uwe Warner, Thomas Tamisier and Fernand Feltz
Now online and regularly accessed, the Sedo homepage is the entry point to a
mine of useful information about citizens' lives in Luxembourg. Underneath, the
site is powered by a customisable platform for maintaining huge banks of data.
Ergonomic search methods quickly deliver mains trends or detailed figures.
Advanced users and people without statistical training can perform their own
calculations with the guarantee of clear and accurate results.
The use of the Net for querying socioeconomic
databases has recently caught
the attention of both experts and the
public at large, with a number of online
services provided by statistical organisations
of various countries, such as those
in Europe that belong to the CESSDA.
Not only does the networked publication
of statistics allow instantaneous update
and correction, but it is also suited to
building a relationship between the data
provider and the data consumer. The
consumer can deliver his feedback and
formalise his requirements and the
provider has the means to control the use
of the data, so that the figures are better
and more properly used. Other advantages
are easing the retrieval of large
data sets, allowing them to be customised,
and enabling end-users to execute
statistical functions for processing
the data on the server.
The CEPS/INSTEAD is a public
research institute for statistics and socioeconomic
studies dedicated to population,
poverty and socio-economic policy.
Through the Sedo (Socio-Economic
Database Online) platform, set up in cooperation
with the Centre de Recherche
Public - Gabriel Lippmann, it offers a
generalised and convenient access to the
voluminous database on the national
population. The information, collected
through socio-economic household
panels, consists of longitudinal data,
which means that the same questions are
periodically checked with the same
respondents. Relevant domains are:
demography, education, post-natal
child-care, employment, equal opportunities,
resources, housing, equipment
and consumption and opinions about the
monetary situation of the household and
its evolution. Such exhaustive and disparate
information is difficult to exploit
due to the complexity and volume of the
data. Up to now, only researchers with a
solid background in longitudinal analysis
could effectively benefit from this
work, whereas it is relevant to all kinds
of professional activities outside the area
of the statistician experts. In addition,
thanks to its precision and its constant
Sedo's results for the public at large.
updating, the socio-economic picture
drawn by the combination of these miscellaneous
themes is apt to significantly
ease communication between the population
and public servants and to support
the decisions made by the political
authorities.
R&D AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
Since autumn 2005, Sedo has been
available online, featuring three different
types of user access. A monitored
free access for everybody to statistical
tables and graphs on the themes of the
study. A controlled access on demand
using a user login and password that
allows registered users to explore the
banks of data without having to install
statistical software on their own computers.
An access of registered users,
making a confidentiality pledge who are
trained in statistical analysis to maintain
individual and sophisticated statistics
and research on the micro data. Finally,
an Internet based discussion forum
allows all users to exchange their expe-
rience and allows communication with
those conducting the surveys and the
research community. Compared to other
information tools in the community, the
Sedo project has great flexibility, a universal
portability and the possibility of
adapting to different databases. The
most obvious benefit of the system is
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