Following the success of the senior school census online in South Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) approached goVote^TM in 2004 to purchase a custom built system that would enable them to conduct a similar online census nationally, without compromising their stringent requirements for data integrity, security and accessibility.

This was a major project for goVote^TM, involving every aspect of the system from the online registration of teachers and issuing them with PINs for their students; to the data sampler that students used to download data for their class work after the census closed.

An added complexity was the ABS requirement for the system to run on their server from behind their firewall, with special encryption to guarantee the anonymity of student participants and the privacy of all data transmission to the ABS server. This resulted in the development of goVote^TM crypto*nite 1024 bit encryption which we now offer to our other clients who require the ultimate in security for their data transmission.

In order to satisfy the ABS standards for accessibility, goVote^TM worked with the Royal Society for the Blind to ensure that 100% vision impaired people could participate, using web page reading / speaking software.

The 2006 online census was a great success, with over 100,000 school students participating in the questionnaire, and over 50,000 samples subsequesntly downloaded from the data base for class room learning activities.

In 2008, goVote^TM has been working closely with ABS staff in Melbourne and Canberra to further develop these system features, culminating in the launch of the 2008 Census at School project.

For further information on the ABS CensusAtSchool project, click on the logo