Use it or lose it: Mining municipal administrative data - ARCHIVED

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities' (FCM) Quality of Life Reporting System (QOLRS) is a means by which to measure, monitor, and report on the quality of life in Canadian municipalities. To address that challenge of administrative data collection across member municipalities the QOLRS technical team collaborated on the development of the Municipal Data Collection Tool (MDCT) which has become a key component of QOLRS' data acquisition methodology. Offered as a case study on administrative data collection, this paper argues that the recent launch of the MDCT has enabled the FCM to access reliable pan-Canadian municipal administrative data for the QOLRS.