July 16, 2002
GERMANTOWN, Maryland, USA - The technical story behind automating the U.S. Bureau of Census’ 2002 Economic Census is available online at http://www.idealliance.org/papers/xmle02/dx_xmle02/papers/04-04-03/04-04-03.html
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The author, Steven A. Schafer, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer at Fenestra Technologies Corporation, presented his paper at XMLEurope2002, in May (produced by IDEAlliance.org).
Schafer directs the automatic generation of both paper and electronic survey forms and the data capture and reuse processes for the 2002 Economic Census, which will be launched to millions of businesses later this year by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Census.
He highlights key problems that needed to be solved, the development of the Generalized Instrument Design System (GIDS) and the rationale, use and future refinements of eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) for this project.
A serendipitous use of GIDS is the production of data dissemination reports for American Factfinder (the electronic system for accessing and disseminating U.S. Census Bureau data over the Internet). More than 1,000 tables and 52 books summarizing 2000 Decennial Census data will be automatically generated, supporting rich paper and electronic form layouts simultaneously, on behalf of IBM.
About Fenestra Technologies: Fenestra researches, designs and deploys practical and turnkey solutions for highly complex content problems. Using a "triage" approach, the firm deepens feature sets and accelerates faster implementation cycles.
Core competencies include forms creation and processing, data collection and validation, complex typography formatting, and the creation of dynamic, scalable and flexible data management solutions for both electronic and paper purposes.
The U.S. Census Bureau continues to partner with Fenestra (since the early ‘90’s), and companies including IBM, ExxonMobil, and Advanced Productivity Software have also retained the firm for specialty expertise.
Contact:
Fenestra Technologies Corporation
Jane O. Smith, 301/916-8800 x 206
jane@fenestra.com