The IPUMS Business Process Model: Instituting a workflow mapping strategy to support archival processes

IPUMS is the home of the world's largest accessible database of census microdata, comprising over two billion records. The signature activity of IPUMS is harmonizing variable codes and documentation to be fully consistent across datasets. Major data types include U.S. and international censuses, global health data, major U.S. demographic surveys, labor force surveys, and educational surveys. In addition to census and survey microdata, IPUMS integrates and disseminates area-level census data and electronic boundaries describing census geography for the U.S. and internationally. While the activities of harmonizing data and documentation are similar across IPUMS projects, their processes are organized around the partners, data sources, unique content issues, and timelines of each project.

The IPUMS Archive is instituting a workflow mapping strategy to further identify IPUMS process and metadata capture points for the data archive. Drawing on two business process models, the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) and the Generic Longitudinal Business Process Model (GLBPM), archival staff customized the GSBPM and the GLBPM to create an IPUMS Business Process Model (IPUMS BPM). The IPUMS BPM reflects the use of secondary data sources and the work of harmonization and integration to create a data infrastructure that supports research across time and space. Internally, the IPUMS BPM provides a clear visualization of our workflow from external submission of data, harmonization process, extraction systems, and archival preservation of metadata. The challenge for archival staff is furthering the understanding and adoption of the IPUMS BPM within the IPUMS project groups, and to identify metadata production points that requires the intervention of the archive for provenance and preservation purposes. This presentation identifies the value of this mapping approach in gaining a clearer understanding of the role of the archive within project work cycles and points where activities intersect.