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12 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 13
by Lucy Bell *
This paper describes the development of
the one-stop Census Registration Service
(CRS), an online system providing quick
and simple user registration for access to
all the varied resources from the 1971,
1981, 1991 and 2001 UK decennial
censuses.
Introduction
UK higher education institutions, through
the UK Data Archive (UKDA) and the Universities of
Manchester, Edinburgh and Leeds, have been providing
access to UK census data for over a quarter of a century. In
that time, the number of data products associated with the
1971, 1981 and 1991 censuses has increased dramatically
and now totals more than 50. This number will increase
again with the release of the results from the 2001 Census.
Such a wealth of resources presents the academic user with
not only the opportunity to use many sophisticated datasets
but also a requirement to accept and fulfil the terms and
conditions of the various licences covering these products.
A new single licence for all 1971-2001 census products
is now in development. In line with this new licence and
in time for the results of the 2001 Census, the UK Data
Archive has been funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) and Joint Information Systems
Committee (JISC) to develop, implement and maintain the
one-stop Census Registration Service (http://www.census-
registration.ac.uk) to simplify the process of registering for
these data products.
This paper reviews the background to the project,
explaining the need for such a co-ordinated service in
light of the varied actual and potential uses of census data
in higher and further education (HE/FE) and the ways in
which these applications are currently developing. It also
reports the findings of a small-scale questionnaire survey
of UK HE/FE staff, undertaken by the paperʼs author,
which sheds light on views of the old and new registration
systems. Lastly, the paper describes the new registration
service in some detail and highlights some of the lessons
learned during its development.
Background
The official census in the United Kingdom has been taken
for 200 years, with 2001 being its bicentenary. It has been
Let Us Bring You to Your Census: Recent
Developments in UK Census Data Provision
conducted every ten years since 1801,
with just two anomalies: it was omitted
in 1941 due to war-time security issues;
and a small-scale, experimental, five-year
census was attempted in 1966, using a 10
percent sample of the population.
The end of the 20th century saw more
activity than ever before in disseminating
census materials to academia. In the late 1970s the UK
Data Archive became involved, as it started to disseminate
the data from 1971. In those days it took nearly ten years
to finalise the census data taken at the start of the decade
and to publish them. Progress in the following years has
speeded this up considerably.
Access for the academic community to these data has also
been assisted by a joint ESRC and JISC programme which
started with the 1991 Census. This programme funded a
series of academic data services, known as Census Data
Support Units (DSUs), which have been disseminating the
data to the UK higher and, more recently, further education
communities in the past decade.
Following the development of these academic services,
the data products available to UK HE/FE have grown
in number. The 1991 programme encouraged the
development of derived datasets and tools which could
be used with the census data. There are now over 50
datasets, including resources such as Deprivation Indices
derived from the census data, which can be used. These
datasets themselves comprise thousands of tables. The
geographical breakdown of these data is sophisticated and,
for certain data, such as the Small Area Statistics, takes
the data to very small output areas. The 1991 ESRC/JISC
programmeʼs online and offline access services have also
been extended to bring in some of the 1971 and 1981 data.
This all gives the UK HE/FE community unrivalled access
to a vast collection of census data.
The data essentially break down into the following
categories:
• Area statistics
• Boundary data
14 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 15
• Interaction data (origin-destination data)
• Microdata (the Samples of Anonymised Records or
SARs)
• Other derived datasets
These data are distributed by the four highly-respected
DSUs, funded via the ESRC/JISC Census Programme
under its 2001 Census budget:
• Census Dissemination Unit from MIMAS (Univer-
sity of Manchester, http://census.ac.uk/cdu) for the area
statistics for 1981, 1991 and 2001 and soon 1971
• Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS)
from EDINA (University of Edinburgh, http://
edina.ac.uk/ukborders) for digitised boundary data for
1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001
• Census Interaction Data Service (Universities of
Leeds and St Andrews, http://census.ac.uk/cids) for
origin-destination statistics for 1981, 1991 and 2001
• Census Microdata Unit from the Cathie Marsh
Centre for Census and Survey Research (University of
Manchester, http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/sars) for the 1991
and 2001 Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs)
The combination of the richness of the data resources and
the sophisticated dissemination services make the census
data valuable for research, teaching and learning; however,
one large obstacle has blocked the userʼs way in past years:
registration.
Because the different census products have evolved over
time, almost every one has resulted in a new licence being
drawn up between the ESRC/JISC and one of the three
census offices in the UK. These three administrations
organise the censuses for their areas: the Office for National
Statistics administers the census for England and Wales;
the General Register Office for Scotland administers the
Scottish census; and the Northern Ireland Statistics and
Research Agency administers the census in Northern
Ireland. To complicate matters further, the 1981 and
1991 boundary data for England and Wales and the 1981
boundary data for Scotland are owned and, therefore,
licensed by three additional bodies: the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister; a consortium called ED-Line; and
the Scottish Executive respectively. Because they have
been developed by different organisations, each of these
licences is slightly different. Even those licences which
relate to the same country can vary in content. Add to this
the fact that four distinctly different services distribute the
data, all of which have required users to register separately
with them, and a complicated system of access becomes
apparent.
The original registration procedures to access the census
data involved the need to locate, print off, complete and
have counter-signed locally, a series of forms, most of
which were slightly different in both content and format, in
order to be able to use all the census data available. A user
approaching the census data in the past may well have had
to fill in different forms depending on which census year
he or she was interested in, which country was needed and
which DSU was being used.
In order to reduce the confusion and the administration
associated with having to fulfil each clause of each licence,
the ESRC/JISC, the three Census Offices and HMSO have
developed a new tripartite agreement which will eliminate
all the old licences, bringing the data from each census
from 1971 onwards under the same terms. This will create
a level playing field, so that all the data may be treated in
the same way. The intention is also for this agreement to
roll forward to bring in new censuses, as and when they are
taken.
The UK Data Archive has developed an online system
which co-ordinates all the registrations for access to the
census data, after having won the tender from the ESRC/
JISC to supply this. It was intended to dispense with the
multiple paper forms and create a smooth, user-friendly,
Web-based registration system which would knock down
many, if not all, of the hurdles in the userʼs path to the
data. The Census Registration Service, established at the
UK Data Archive in August 2001, has been developing this
system over the course of the past year. The system is now
live, meaning that just one online registration now entitles
the user to access the data from all the DSUs, for all the
years, countries and types of data, using a simple, online,
Athens1-compliant system.
Consultation
One of the first tasks in the CRSʼs life was to undertake
a series of consultations in order to guarantee that the
development of the service satisfied all the stakeholders
as far as possible. These stakeholders comprised the four
DSUs whose registration needs the CRS serves, other
experts and a sample of the current systemʼs users.
Three meetings with the DSUs were held during the first
year of the service. In order to facilitate confidential and
speedy discussions about the progress of the service a
closed JISCmail2 discussion list was also established in
November 2001. The list has been used extensively and
has proved to be a vital forum for sharing comments and
suggestions.
Consultation with the future users of the service was
considered to be just as important as consultation with the
DSUs. A series of surveys were prepared and undertaken
between November 2001 and March 2002 in order to
ascertain the users ̓views of the current registration
14 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 15
procedures which were then in place. This was done for
three reasons:
1. To elicit their views about the then current and
forthcoming census registration systems
2. To start to advertise the forthcoming changes
3. To discover whether any of the current users
selected would be interested in beta testing the new
system
Initially, all MIMAS and UK Data Archive class tutors
using census data and UKBORDERS-selected class tutors
were contacted with an email questionnaire on Tuesday 4
December 2001 (Appendix A). Class tutors form a special
set of census data users. Under the old system, whole
classes of students from one university could register in one
batch by signing one licence administered by their tutor.
This added to the workload of already busy lecturers whose
responsibility it became to ensure that their students were
signed up to use the data.
The email questionnaire was sent to 48 class tutors; 19
replied. Their responses indicated both familiarity and
discontent with the old system:
• 16 said that they either knew how some, most or
all of the system worked
• 9 said they found the system either impenetrable or
quite difficult to use
• 7 found it ʻmiddling ̓in terms of ease-of-use
• 10 were dissatisfied
• 2 were extremely dissatisfied
From their written comments, their main concerns were as
follows:
• Gathering student signatures is very time consum-
ing
• The registration process involves too much paper-
work
• The registration forms tend to be long and complex
• Individual registration for each database is tire-
some
• Tutor involvement should be minimised or elimi-
nated
They came up with the following suggestions:
• Speedy online self-registration for students
• A system that is not too technical but easily ex-
plained online
• A single form for all census data services
When asked which aspects would discourage them from
using – or wanting to use – a system, they came up almost
unanimously (n=15) with:
• Tutor involvement in gathering students ̓names
This was the key. It was reported that it was difficult to
organise signatures for an entire class using hard copies
of licences because some from the class will always be
absent at the time of signature collection. The class tutors
commented on their frustration in having to chase the
stragglers.
Following on from the class tutors ̓questionnaire survey,
all site representatives from MIMAS, UKBORDERS and
the UK Data Archive were emailed the URL of an online
questionnaire on 7 February 2002 (see Appendix B for the
text of the questionnaire). The CCSR representatives were
alerted to the questionnaire through the SARs Newsletter.
In total, 373 representatives were emailed the details of
the online questionnaire. Seventy-one replied, yielding
a response rate of 19 percent. The results from these
respondents mirrored those of the class tutors in that they
indicated both an understanding of the system and some
dissatisfaction about the way it worked.
• 57.75 percent (n=41) were familiar with at least
some of the system, with 32.4 percent (n=23) feeling
familiar with most or all of it.
• The respondents did not seem to find the system
easy to use. 38.03 percent (n=27) found it ʻquite dif-
ficult ̓or ʻvery difficult ̓to use, 33.8 percent (n=24)
found it ʻneither difficult nor easyʼ, with only 9.86 per-
cent (n=7) finding it ʻeasyʼ. None of the respondents
ticked the ʻvery easy ̓box.
• Despite their familiarity with the system, the site
representatives were, in the main, dissatisfied with it.
42.25 percent (n=30) ticked the ʻextremely dissatis-
fied ̓or ʻdissatisfied ̓boxes; 14.08 percent (n=10) were,
however, satisfied. No-one ticked the ʻextremely satis-
fied ̓box.
The reasons supplied for dissatisfaction were:
• The need for counter-signatures on the licence
agreements and the reliance on the postal service to
deliver them both slow the process down
16 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 17
• The confusing abundance of forms and the dif-
ficulty in identifying which forms are needed for which
dataset and, indeed, whether all the correct ones have
been found, all cause frustration
• The time it takes to register puts off potential users
(for students in particular, it was emphasised that the
system needs to be speedy)
• The need to remember multiple user names for
the services and to register separately for each one is
burdensome
The questionnaire included a series of suggested
improvements which the respondents were asked to
tick should they desire them. Although not all of these
additional functions were ticked by each representative,
they each received a tick from at least 59% of the
questionnaireʼs respondents. The preferred registration
functionality, in order of preference, was as follows:
• A single interface for all services, 95.77 percent
(n=68)
• Immediate access to the data after registration,
81.69 percent (n=58)
• Step-by-step online guidance on how to register,
73.24 percent (n=52)
• The functionality to jump from one service to
another without logging on again, 66.2 percent (n=47)
• Nothing to sign, 60.56 percent (n=43)
• Helpdesk facility for registration problems, 59.15
percent (n=42)
The results of the class tutors questionnaire were
combined with the results of the questionnaire sent to the
site representatives and the desires of the respondents
incorporated into the system as far as possible.
The functionality of the registration system
After these consultations and further scenario planning,
the final specification for the service was decided. This
was then programmed, beta-tested and launched. In more
detail, the systemʼs features are as follows:
• It is short, simple and straightforward, comprising
a wholly online system with no need for paper licences
and counter-signatures.
• It is Athens-authenticated, meaning that users will
simply have to input their Athens usernames to access
the data. This does, of course, mean that users will
have to have Athens usernames before approaching the
system; however, this is a straightforward process. In
fact, many users will already have Athens identities for
use with other resources.
• The CRS verifies users ̓email addresses using a
simple procedure. As soon as the user has completed
the online form, a message is sent to the email address
they entered. The email contains a URL which they
must visit. Once they have successfully completed
this, they will have registered to use the census data.
There are two reasons for undertaking this email
check. First, it confirms the userʼs email address and,
second, it checks that the email goes to the person who
completed the registration form.
• The system has a facility for users to update their
own details; for instance, if an undergraduate becomes
a postgraduate, his or her status may be altered accord-
ingly online.
• An online feedback area exists, where users may
submit enquiries to the CRS team.
• There is a facility for inputting the details of publi-
cations which have arisen from use of the census data.
One of the conditions of the End User Licence is that
the user agrees to inform the CRS about these publica-
tions. In order to make this easy for the user, the CRS
has established a centralised area of the Web site where
this may be completed online.
• The system offers registered users the opportunity
to sign up for the UK Data Archive as well, removing
the need for them to complete additional online forms.
• The site also contains other informative pages,
containing news and useful links.
Obstacles and lessons
Few obstacles were encountered during the serviceʼs
development, but those that did arise were complex. These
have now been overcome and the relevant issues addressed.
The obstacles essentially fell into two categories: licensing
issues and technical issues.
Tracking down all the previous licences, including those
for the digitised boundary data which were owned by
different organisations than the rest of the census data,
proved time-consuming. Additionally, the CRS had hoped
to be able to bring other census-related datasets into the
registration system in time for its launch, but this proved to
be impossible due to time constraints.
The technical obstacles with which the CRS had to grapple
related primarily to the different levels of access control
that each Data Support Unit required for their data. For
example, some units were clear that, should the service
16 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 17
be opened up outside the UK HE/FE community, it would
not be possible for their data to be disseminated to these
additional users. The CRS was intended to be a one-stop
shop but, because of this access issue, it has also been
developed with flexibility in mind. This flexibility was
achieved through use of the Athens profile system.
The Athens system allows each of the services to be treated
differently; each can be set up as a separate ʻresource ̓in
the Athens terminology. Each user who is granted access to
a resource has an electronic ʻprofileʼ, to which information
may be written and from which information may be read.
The census system has been established so that, once a
user registers with the CRS, the expiry date of his or her
registration is written to the userʼs profile. When the user
logs into one of the DSUs the Athens software reads the
profile and assesses whether or not the user is entitled to
access the data. This system can be extended to include
other information regarding the userʼs status to allow or
disallow access to individual DSUs. For instance, should
a user work outside the HE/FE sector, a fact which can
be determined from the Athens username, information
about access rights can be included in the userʼs profile,
preventing him or her from using some units and allowing
them the use of others.
Lessons about how not to re-invent the wheel were learned
early on in the project. The use of externally established
systems of communication and authentication assisted the
CRS enormously. One of these was Athens, while another
was the JISCmail closed discussion list. This allowed all
parties involved to reflect on changes to the system and to
suggest the best solutions. It also resulted in agreement
among all four of the DSUs.
Support has also been forthcoming from many quarters.
The DSUs have encouraged the serviceʼs development and
given ideas and advice all the way, as have users in the
field. Colleagues in the UK Data Archive have been on
hand to discuss various options whenever needed. This
has supplied the CRS team with a rich and varied body of
experts from whom to take advice.
The launch and the future
The service was launched on 2 August 2002. From this
point onwards, all UK HE/FE census data users have
registered with the CRS. Previous users have had to
re-register with the service for legal reasons. The UK
Data Protection Act 1998 means that the CRS cannot
simply transfer users ̓details from one service to another;
however, the bonus that exists in re-registration is that the
process should be short, simple and straightforward. Most
importantly, filling in one online form entitles users in the
academic community to use all four of the Census Data
Support Unit services and the UK Data Archive.
The CRS is now entering Phase 2 of its life and is gearing
up to enhance and improve the service. The developments
planned include a search interface to the database and more
links. The CRS team will also be listening carefully to its
users ̓suggestions. If additional changes take place, they
could well be a result of comments made by those whom
the CRS values very highly –- the people using the data.
Footnotes
1 Athens (http://www.athens.ac.uk) is a system used
throughout UK HE/FE which supplies students and staff
with just one username and password to access many
different databases. It works with the education – and other
– sectors and with database producers. HE/FE institutions
must negotiate access for their user communities to
different databases, after which the database producers
inform Athens which institutionʼs members may use their
services. The institutions are then granted access to these
databases by Athens. Athens has over 1.8 million user
accounts. All UK HE/FE institutions and the Research
Councils have already been granted access to the census
services, as these are the audiences for whom the services
have been funded.
2 JISCmail (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk) is a service based
on LISTSERV which allows UK academics and support
staff to join, create and manage electronic discussion lists.
*Paper presented at the IASSIST Conference, June
2002, in Storrs, CT, USA. Lucy Bell, UK Data Archive,
lajbell@essex.ac.uk.
Appendix A: Email to class tutors, sent to 48 people via
email on Tuesday 4th December 2001
Dear Dr ~
The Census Registration Service at the UK Data Archive
is in the process of
setting up a one stop shop Census Registration Service,
providing a user-friendly and simple registration system
for access to all the varied census resources from the 1971,
1981, 1991 and 2001 decennial censuses. This means that,
soon, just one registration per person will be required to
access all census materials from 1971, no matter where
the data are located (MIMAS, UKBORDERS, Centre
for Censuses and Survey Research etc.). The service is
expected to be ready in the summer of 2002. For more
information on the project, please follow the link to the
UK Data Archiveʼs projects web pages .
My role is to coordinate this process and one of the first
things I am trying to do is to canvas opinions on the ideal
design and functionality of the new service. Colleagues
at MIMAS mentioned your name as a tutor who uses the
class registration procedures to access census materials
http://www.athens.ac.uk
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk
lajbell@essex.ac.uk
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/home/CensusRS.asp
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/home/CensusRS.asp
18 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 19
with your students and suggested that you may have
extremely valuable views on how the new system should
be developed in this regard. If you had five or ten minutes
to answer the questions below and email them back to me,
I would be very grateful. Indeed, any comments about the
current and/or future registration systems in relation to the
needs of class tutors would be gratefully received. If at all
possible, it would be helpful to have all responses back by
Friday 21st December.
Many thanks.
Lucy Bell
Service Coordinator
Census Registration Service
UK Data Archive. University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park Colchester Essex CO4 3SQ
Tel: 01206 873950
Email: lajbell@essex.ac.uk
**** Questionnaire: Access to the Census Datasets ****
1. On a scale of 1 - 5, where 5 is the greatest, how
familiar do you feel with the current systems of class
registration required to access the 1971-1991 census
datasets? PLEASE MARK.
1 __ I donʼt know how the system works at all
2 __ I know only a little about how it works
3 __ I know some of it quite well
4 __ I am fairly sure how most of it works
5 __ I know exactly how it works
2. On a scale of 1 - 5, where 5 is the easiest, how
easy do you find the current census registration systems to
use? PLEASE MARK.
1 __ Impenetrable
2 __ Quite difficult
3 __ Middling
4 __ Easy
5 __ Very easy
3. On a scale of 1 - 5, where 5 is extremely satisfied,
how satisfied are you with the current registration
procedures? PLEASE MARK.
1 __ Extremely dissatisfied
2 __ Dissatisfied
3 __ Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
4 __ Satisfied
5 __ Extremely satisfied
Please give the reason(s) for your answer to question 3:
4. What would make you, as a class tutor, view the
new census registration system as a success?
5. Which aspects of an online registration system
would discourage you, as a class tutor, from using it?
6. If there are any anonymised suggestions or
complaints you have picked up from students using the
current census registration system and which you feel you
can share, please describe them below.
7. Any other comments:
If you would like to express an interest in the beta testing of
the new service in 2002, please just let me know.
Many thanks for your time in answering these questions.
Lucy Bell
Service Coordinator
Census Registration Service
UK Data Archive
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
Essex
CO4 3SQ
Tel: 01206 873950
Email: lajbell@essex.ac.uk
************************************************
Legal Disclaimer: Any views expressed by the sender
of this message are not necessarily those of the UK Data
Archive. This Email and any files transmitted with it
are confidential and intended solely for the use of the
individual(s) or entity to whom they are addressed.
************************************************
18 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 19
Appendix B: Online questionnaire for site representa-
tives
Census Registration Service Questionnaire
Many thanks for taking the time to visit this page and
complete the questionnaire (below). The results will
be stored in a database held at the UK Data Archive.
The information is being gathered to help inform the
development of the new one-stop Census Registration
Service for UK higher and further education.
This new service will provide an integrated, seamless, user-
friendly and simple registration system for access to all
the varied resources from the 1971, 1981, 1991 and, when
they are ready, 2001 decennial censuses. This means that,
soon, just one registration per person will be required to
access all census materials from 1971, no matter where the
data are located (MIMAS, UKBORDERS, Cathie Marsh
Centre for Census and Survey Research, CIDS or the UK
Data Archive). The service is expected to be ready in the
summer of 2002. The answers you give to the questions
below will help to determine its final design.
1. How familiar do you feel with the current system of
registration required to access the 1971-1991 census
datasets?
• I donʼt know how the system works at all.
• I know only a little about how it works.
• I know some of it quite well.
• I know, reasonably well, how most of it works.
• I know exactly how it works.
• I have never used the system (please go to question
4).
2. How easy do you find the current census registration
system to use?
• Very difficult.
• Quite difficult.
• Neither difficult nor easy.
• Easy.
• Very easy.
3. How satisfied are you with the current census registration
procedures for UK higher and further education?
• Extremely dissatisfied.
• Dissatisfied.
• Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
• Satisfied.
• Extremely satisfied.
Please give a brief summary of the reason(s) for your
answer for question 3:
4. If usage statistics for this service for your institution
were available, which level of breakdown would you find
most useful?
By which category of user? (tick all that apply)
• I would not need the results to be broken down by
category of user.
• Educational type (staff, postgraduate, undergradu-
ate etc).
• Department.
• Subject area.
By which time period? (tick one)
• Annual figures.
• Quarterly figures.
• Figures produced more frequently than quarterly.
5. What would you, as a user, like to see in an ideal census
registration system? (tick all that apply)
• A single interface for logging on to all services.
• Nothing to sign.
• The functionality to be able to jump from one
service to another without logging on again.
• Immediate access to the data after registration.
• Helpdesk facility for registration problems.
• Step-by-step online guidance on how to register.
• Something else (please specify).
20 IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002
IASSIST Quarterly Summer 2002 21
6. Additionally, please indicate on a scale of 1-5 where 5
is the most satisfied, your satisfaction with the following
aspects of the UK Data Archive registration system:
• The registration process 1 2 3 4 5
• Logging in on subsequent visits, once already
registered 1 2 3 4 5
• The email instructions 1 2 3 4 5
• Resolution of registration problems 1 2 3 4 5
7. Any other comments relating to the UK Data Archive or
the census registration systems:
Your details
Full Name
Department
Email Address
Telephone Number
Which service(s) do you represent?
� MIMAS
� UK Data Archive
� UKBORDERS
� Athens
� CCSR (SARs)
� None of these
If you would prefer your contact details not to be included
in the database of respondents to this survey, � please tick
this box.
The new service will be beta tested in 2002, please indicate
below whether or not you would like to be involved in this
process.
� Yes please
� No thank you
� Not sure, please contact me again later on in 2002.
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