Where will Census of Agriculture data be processed?
Once completed questionnaires are received, they go to a central processing centre in the National Capital Region where they are scanned and electronically imaged for data processing. Processing Census of Agriculture questionnaires includes many checks and balances to ensure high quality data. The 2006 Census marks the first time that both the Census of Population and the Census of Agriculture will be using a technology called Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR). The Census of Agriculture pioneered the use of this technology in 2001, an experience that has provided invaluable insight for 2006. ICR is done completely by computers, not by keyboarders as in the past. The images are sent through an automated data capture system that captures the handwritten answers and transforms them into computer-usable data. Processing the data is a long and complex process. Its many steps — including several kinds of edits (clerical, subject matter, geographic), matching or unduplicating individual
