<P> Several countries have used a system which is known as short form / long form . This is a sampling strategy which randomly chooses a proportion of people to send a more detailed questionnaire to (the long form). Everyone receives the short form questions . Thereby more data are collected but not imposing a burden on the whole population . This also reduces the burden on the statistical office . Indeed, in the UK all residents were required to fill in the whole form but only a 10% sample were coded and analysed in detail, until 2001 . New technology means that all data are now scanned and processed . Recently there has been controversy in Canada about the cessation of the long form with the head, Munir Sheikh resigning . </P> <P> The use of alternative enumeration strategies is increasing but these are not so simple as many people assume and only occur in developed countries . The Netherlands has been most advanced in adopting a census using administrative data . This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time . Data can be matched and an overall enumeration established accounting for where the different sources are discrepant . A validation survey is still conducted in a similar way to the post enumeration survey employed in a traditional census . Other countries which have a population register use this as a basis for all the census statistics needed by users . This is most common amongst Nordic countries but requires a large number of different registers to be combined including population, housing, employment and education . These registers are then combined and brought up to the standard of a statistical register by comparing the data in different sources and ensuring the quality is sufficient for official statistics to be produced . A recent innovation is the French instigation of a rolling census programme with different regions enumerated each year such that the whole country is completely enumerated every 5 to 10 years . In Europe, in connection with the 2010 census round, a large number of countries adopted alternative census methodologies, often based on the combination of data from registers, surveys and other sources . </P> <P> Censuses have evolved in their use of technology with the latest censuses, the 2010 round, using many new types of computing . In Brazil, handheld devices were used by enumerators to locate residences on the ground . In many countries, census returns could be made via the Internet as well as in paper form . DSE is facilitated by computer matching techniques which can be automated, such as propensity score matching . In the UK, all census formats are scanned and stored electronically before being destroyed, replacing the need for physical archives . The record linking to perform an administrative census would not be possible without large databases being stored on computer systems . </P> <P> New technology is not without problems in its introduction . The US census had intended to use the handheld computers but cost escalated and this was abandoned, with the contract being sold to Brazil . Online response is a good idea but one of the functions of census is to make sure everyone is counted accurately . A system which allowed people to enter their address without verification would be open to abuse . Therefore, households have to be verified on the ground, typically by an enumerator visit or post out . Paper forms are still necessary for those without access to Internet connections . It is also possible that the hidden nature of an administrative census means that users are not engaged with the importance of contributing their data to official statistics . </P>

The u.s. census would be an example of this type of research