2000 Census: Update on Daa Capture Operations and System
Abstract
Earlier this year the U.S. Census Bureau adopted a two-phase approach to capturing household data for the 2000 decennial census. Under phase one, which the bureau terms first pass, only the data necessary to determine the reapportioning of seats in the House of Representatives, which the bureau calls 100 percent data, are captured. Under the second pass, the remaining data, which the bureau calls sample data, are captured. To implement this two-pass approach, the bureau had to modifyt one of its key systems, the Data Capture System (DCS) 2000, so that during the first pass only the 100 percent data from the digitally imaged census forms (short and long) would be optically read (and keyed) and so that the long-form images could be written to a mass storage device. At the same time that it has been conducting first-pass operations, the bureau's DCS 2000 development contractor has been creating a modified version of the system so that during second-pass operations the stored long-form images can be retrieved and the sample data can be optically scanned and keyed. We have been reviewing and periodically reporting on 1) the bureau's progress in performing first-pass data capture operations, including the performance of DCS 2000, and 2) the bureau's progress in modifying DCS 2000 to perform planned second-pass data capture operations. This letter provides our findings on both topics. The bureau has made good progress on first-pass data capture operations. The bureau met its milestone for completing its processing of questionnaires that households mailed back and it finished processing of questionnaires completed by enumerators ahead of schedule. In addition, DCS 2000 has exceeded its key performance goals, such as optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy. n support of first-pass operations. The bureau's contractor responsible for modifying DCS 2000 to support second-pass operations is proceeding slightly ahead of schedule.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 29, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA384495
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office