On the satellite event of the Conference on New Techniques and Technologies for Statistics on March 6, a team from VUB, from Destatis, from Statbel, and from TOR-VUB spin-off hbits gave a workshop on using the MOTUS data collection platform back-office to conduct Time-Use Surveys and Household Budget Surveys. After a live demonstration, participants could experience with designing these surveys themselves.
Innovate data collection processes
The satellite event frames within EUROSTAT’s initiatives to innovate data collection processes. Innovation is in particular important for studies that face a high response burden, a decline in response rates, and a rise of collection costs. Amongst the most demanding studies are the HBS (Household Budget Survey) and the TUS (Time Use Survey).
In consortium with STATBEL and DESTATIS (respectively the statistical offices of Belgium and Germany), the MOTUS data collection platform was introduced to the Official Statistics. MOTUS is a data collection platform developed by the Research Group TOR of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and further developed by its spin-off “hbits”. In a recent ESTAT.F.4 funded grant project (CRŒSS), the consortium scaled up MOTUS from a TUS-related platform to include HBS as well. The goal of the CRŒSS project was to realise a CROSS-domain platform (HBS and TUS) that is also shareable within the ESS.
Brewing beer as metaphor for statistical business process
During the satellite event MOTUS was introduced and a Time Use Survey and Household Budget Survey were live created. This allowed demonstrating how methodological and design decisions can be implemented in the back-office and how this will be presented to respondents in the front-office. After the live demonstration, participants could experience with designing these surveys themselves.
The team translated the statical business process involved to the process of brewing Belgian beer. The result, CRŒSSBÄCHER, was presented to the participants at the end of the satellite event and during the NTTS conference.