WERS 2004 Second User Group Meeting

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WERS 2004Second User Group Meeting

• WERS 2004 Information Advice Service

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Outline

• Rationale for WIAS
• About WIAS
• Ongoing activities
• Other activities carried out so far
• Future plans

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Rationale

• Funded by the ESRC
• Aims to encourage use of WERS data in research
  and teaching
• WIAS to promote and support use of WERS 2004
  through provision of information and advice

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Aims of WIAS

• Promote wider access to, and use of, the
  publicly-available data
• Maintain the integrity of the publicly-available
  data
• Provide direct support for users
• Support the user community
• Augment the publicly-available data

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General guidance for users

• General guidance on analysis of WERS
• Answers to approximately 30 FAQs are provided on
  our website, covering
• - obtaining documentation and data
• - finding your way around the files
• - manipulating the data files
• - derived variables
• - weighting and statistical inference
• - publishing your research

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Answering further questions

• Helpline (via email or telephone)
• Email wers2004_at_niesr.ac.uk
• Telephone [phone]
• Over 220 queries in past 12 months
• Aim to respond within 3 working days (although
  often sooner)

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Developing the user community

• Open discussion list (moderated)
• Currently circa 120 members
• WIAS use to announce news and events
• To post to the list
• wers_at_jiscmail.ac.uk
• To view the archive
• http//www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/WERS.html
• For full details on joining please see
• http//www.wers2004.info/about/contact.php

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Other activities carried out so far

• Frequency tabulations
• (and custom tabulations)
• Syntax used in First Findings
• Slides from First Findings

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Other activities carried out so far

• Key derived variables added to the data file for
  the FPQ at the ONS Virtual Microdata Lab in
  September 2006
• WIAS Technical Paper 1
• Forth and McNabb (2006) Innovations in WERS
  2004 the collection of objective data on
  workplace performance

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Other activities carried out so far

• Equivalence tables for cross-section survey of
  managers and employees
• Variable notes and primary analysis errata
  periodically updated
• Useful Links section added to website
• - includes links to the WERS sponsors, also
  to other establishment-level surveys both in the
  UK and other countries

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WERS research database

• Online database for WERS 2004-based research
• Downloadable spreadsheet for existing
  bibliography
• Full bibliography to be available through online
  database in the summer
• Please add details of your research to the
  database (or email us if preferred)

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Additional data and revisions

• Additional data to be available from UK Data
  Archive in April. This includes
• - Regional and industry identifiers for
  cross-section manager and panel datasets
• - Data from the FPQ
• - Revised weight for SEQ (please see
  handout)
• - Plus some small additional revisions

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Future plans (1)

• Further technical papers
• - New and innovative data items (March 2007)
• - Analysis of linked data (September 2007)
• - Plus fourth topic to be confirmed
• WERS 2004 to be available through Nesstar (UK
  Data Archive)

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Future plans (2)

• Matching of additional data items
• Investigating potential links to other datasets
• Adding a time-point to the WERS time series
  dataset
• Suggestions welcome!

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Further information

• WERS Information and Advice Service
• URL http//www.wers2004.info
• Email wers2004_at_niesr.ac.uk
• Telephone [phone]