The 1995/1996 Household Income, Expenditure - (PDF, 101 mb ...

in the speed of processing of any survey at CAPMAS.
LD.10 Keyer Productivity
Table 1.5 is an annualized summary of keyer productivity measures for
the data entry operators. "Production" is the number of questionnaires for
which operators were ultimately responsible. "Speed" is the average number
of keystrokes per hour, timed by CENTRY. "Error" is the average error rate
- the number of times they made an invalid keystroke per 1000 keystrokes.
The intention of this table is to show the evaluation detail that good data
entry software provides, as well as the heterogeneous nature of skills, but
overall the high degree of professional capability in the core of the
processing team.
There were 9 full-time operators, and 6 part-timers, overseen by three
managers intimately connected with the allocation of work flow. Data entry
must be considered the bright spot in the 1995/1996 HIECS, not simply
because speed rates were above the international standard of 8000 keystrokes
per hour. The job was a very big one, often tedious, and all of the data was
double-keyed (verified - entered twice for accuracy). Yet turnover was not a
serious problem. In short the success of the Egyptian HIECS owes much to
the computer operators who entered the data.
LD.ll Edit Routine
The CONCOR edit routine produced error reports about lack of
consistency between items from verified data. These reports were then used
to correct the raw data. It is possible to summarize annually what the
common sources of error were, given the monthly batch samples. Usually
approximately 82 PSUs were represented per month, so the edit manager
selected one random questionnaire from each of the 82 monthly PSU batches,
and annualized this, to produce the table of common frequency errors for the
year. Assuming that this sample was representative, two-thirds of all CONCOR
errors were typical of the ones in Table 1.7.
The main sources of inconsistency in the verified (and prevalidated)
HIECS data remained row and column summary errors. The computer was
much more efficient at catching enumerator summation errors than were the
editors and coders in the field, or the workers in the CET department.
LD.12 LAN
L26
Fifteen computers comprised the HIECS local area network (LAN), two
primary servers, three analysis computers, and ten computers for data entry.
The LAN setup initially permitted the linking of only the ten data entry
terminals due to incompatible components. The two primary servers were
rotated and used for backup on a scheduled basis, but this sequence, too, was
derailed a number of times by difficulties restoring the system. Despite
having two uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units, electricity supply was
problematic. CAPMAS would not permit electricity to remain on after hours,
necessitating booting up the system every day. When power outages
occurred, approximately three days per month, the raw batch files were
corrupted by CENTRY screen characters, requiring later correction by editing.
In October of 1995, management spent a good deal of downtime