Living Standards Measurement Survey 2001 (Wave 1 Panel)

(a) DATA ENTRY

An integrated approach to data entry and fieldwork was adopted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Data entry proceeded side by side with data gathering to ensure verification and correction in the field. Data entry stations were located in the regional offices of the entity institutes and were equipped with computers, modem and a dedicated telephone line. The completed questionnaires were delivered to these stations each day for data entry. Twenty data entry operators (10 from Federation and 10 from RS) were trained in two training sessions held for a week each in Sarajevo and Banja Luka. The trainers were the staff of the two entity institutes who had undergone training in the CSPro software earlier and had participated in the workshops of the Pilot survey. Prior to the training, laptop computers were provided to the entity institutes, and the CSPro software was installed in them. The training for the data entry operators covered the following elements:

• Introduction to the LSMS Survey questionnaire; Introduction to the personal computers/ lap top computers; Copying data on diskette and printing of output
• The Data entry programme (CSPro). Understanding of the Round 1 data entry screens (Modules 1-10)
• Practice of Round 1 (data entry trainees enter questionnaires completed by interviewer trainees during practice interviews)
• Understanding of Round 2 Data entry screen (Modules 11-13)
• Practice of Round 2 Data entry screens (data entry trainees entered the questionnaires completed by interviewer trainees)
• Control Procedures; Copying data on diskette and printing lists of errors; Transfer of the data through email to the institutes

The data entry programme was fine-tuned during the training. Some unexpected responses during the interviews had to be accommodated and a few skip patterns fixed. The training emphasized the role of the data entry operator as a member of the survey team, and how the outputs of the programme (error lists) were to be provided to the supervisors and interviewers for necessary correction. The goal was to produce high quality data. Several of the key features of this were:

1. Pre-coded verbatim questionnaires
2. Error detection at the time of data entry
3. Data entry that was concurrent with fieldwork
4. Correction of suspected errors in the field.

(b) QUALITY CHECKS

The following checks were incorporated in the data entry software:

1. Value Range: The program checked to ensure that the values entered were within the valid range for each variable;
2. Reference tables: Where appropriate, the entered data were checked against reference values ( e.g. the price of a kilo of tomato could not exceed 10 KM
3. Skip checks: The program checked that all appropriate skips were followed, both within and between different units of observation;
4. Checks for consistency between different responses: The program checked for internal consistency. For example, whether the age of a person was sufficient for the education level attained, if a filter question for agriculture had a positive response that the module had all relevant information entered and the like.

After the data entry was completed in the field, the data were transferred through email to the central offices in Sarajevo and Banja Luka with the help of PCAnywhere Software. The data entry programme was designed to detect many of the errors even at the stage of data entry, thereby minimizing the need for ex-post facto data editing. Once all data was compiled in the entity offices, a check was made to ensure the structural consistency of data files, i.e. that no records were duplicated or omitted. When the RS and FBiH data files were merged it became apparent that a last minute decision on the treatment of decimal places in several modules had been different in the two entities. Thus, the two data bases were not compatible. A correction was made and data from these modules were re-entered. Once this was done, the data sets were compatible, and a countrywide data set was created. During this process some additional double entry was carried out to correct any data entry operator errors that had occurred. Data Cleaning It is important to note what is meant by 'data cleaning' in terms of the BiH-LSMS data set. In the sense that the data set is a faithful reflection of the responses of all interviewees the data set can be considered 'cleaned'. Every effort was made to ensure that the information provided during the interviews was correctly entered in electronic format.