Data is collected in the production of official statistics. The data comes from administrative records or through surveys. Data collected is used to develop indicators and statistics for policy makers in demographic and social, economic and or environmental areas. Data editing is important.

Data editing involves reviewing and adjusting collected survey data in an effort to detect error and outliers. The purpose is to improve the quality of the collected data. Data editing can be performed manually, with the assistance of a computer or a combination of both.

Data editing helps maximize the usefulness of data, as it seeks to ensure that there are no errors which may have arisen in the collection or entry stage. It ensures that the characteristics are consistency and coherence, thus allowing for quality output.

Data editing sometimes involves measures and indicators to assess the level of accuracy of the data, such as the number of non-response, percentage of fields with error detected to the total number of fields in the database.

• » Aids in detecting errors that would affect the validity of the output.
• » Detecting inconsistencies
• » Provides information that allows for assessing the quality of the data
• » Validates the data for its collection purpose

• » Validity and completeness of data
• » Ranges
• » Duplicate data entry
• » Outliers

This is a method of using information for different sources about the same entity to create a new and richer dataset. It allows for better research and statistics to be produced. Data linking provides the opportunity for complex analysis of issues to be undertaken and enhances the quality and consistency of existing data thus maximizing the quality of existing data.