Overview of core UKDA activities and virtual tour of the UKDA web site

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Overview of core UKDA activities and virtual tour
of the UKDA web site

• ASLIB visit to the UK Data Archive
• Wednesday 24 November 2004
• Louise Corti, Associate Director

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University of Essex has

• 17 academic departments
• 9,100 students
• 25 in Graduate school
• 110 different countries
• 20 specialist centres, many inter-disciplinary

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University of Essex
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University of Essex is

• ranked among top 12 universities in research
• home of 3 major ESRC-funded institutes and
  numerous smaller projects
• host of major EU-funded projects in the social
  sciences
• home of Europes leading social science Summer
  School

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UKDA Background

• established at the University of Essex in 1967 by
  the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• specialises in data acquisitions, providing
  advice to data creators, preservation,
  dissemination and promotion of and support for
  using social science and historical data
• core funded by the ESRC and the University of
  Essex and JISC, as part of ESDS
• has other sources of project based income via
  projects
• formal place of deposit as recognised by TNA
  since summer 2004

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What is the ESDS?

• national data archiving and dissemination
  service, running from 1 Jan 2003
• jointly supported by
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
• initial five year funding commitment
• partners
• UK Data Archive (UKDA), Essex
• Manchester Information and Associated Services
  (MIMAS), Manchester
• Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey
  Research (CCSR), Manchester
• Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER),
  Essex

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ESDS Overview

• provides access and support for key economic and
  social data
• distributed service, bringing together centres of
  expertise in data creation, dissemination,
  preservation and use
• provides seamless and easier access to a range of
  disparate resources for UK Higher and Further
  Education sectors
• core archiving services plus four specialist data
  services

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Sources of data
Data for research and teaching purposes,used in
all sectors and for many different disciplines

• official agencies - mainly central government
• international statistical time series
• individual academics - research grants
• market research agencies
• public records/historical sources
• links to UK census data
• qualitative and quantitative
• access to international data via links with other
  data archives worldwide

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Collection held at UKDA

• 5,000 datasets in the collection
• 200 new datasets are added each year
• 6,500 orders for data per year
• 18,000 datasets distributed worldwide per year
• history data service in-house (AHDS History)
• Census Registration Service in-house

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ESDS core services

• ESDS Management
• central 'first stop' help desk service
• coherent and flexible collections development
  policy
• central registration service operating across the
  ESDS
• universal data portal
• ESDS Access and Preservation
• collections development strategy
• ingest activities - including data and
  documentation processing
• metadata creation
• data dissemination services
• long-term preservation

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ESDS specialist data services

• ESDS Government
• ESDS International
• ESDS Longitudinal
• ESDS Qualidata
• provide
• dedicated web sites
• data and documentation enhancements
• user support
• training

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ESDS Online access to data and user guides

• web pages
• easy to navigate format
• web catalogue with variable level searching
• subject browsing and major series
• free web access to online doc - pdf user guides
  and forms
• registration
• one-off registration with userid/password
• online account management and Shopping Basket
  ordering
• data are freely available for the majority of
  users
• Athens authentication
• data download and online browsing
• web download in various software formats - SPSS,
  STATA, tab-delimited, word
• Nesstar online data analysis and visualisation
• ESDS International online system
• ESDS Qualidata online browsing system

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The large-scale government surveys

• General Household Survey
• Labour Force Survey
• Health Survey for England/Wales/Scotland
• Family Expenditure Survey
• British Crime Survey
• Family Resources Survey
• National Food Survey/Expenditure and Food Survey
• ONS Omnibus Survey
• Survey of English Housing
• British Social Attitudes
• National Travel Survey
• Time Use Survey

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Benefits of the large-scale government datasets

• good quality data
• produced by experienced research organisations
• usually nationally representative with large
  samples
• good response rates
• very well documented
• continuous data
• allows comparison over time
• data is largely cross-sectional
• hierarchical data
• individual and household
• intra-household differences
• household effects on individuals

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Percentage of women aged 18-49 cohabiting
General Household Survey
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What are longitudinal data?

• longitudinal surveys involve repeated surveys of
  the same individuals at different points in time
• they have become increasingly important in the
  social sciences because they allow researchers to
  analyse change at the individual level
• there are various different types of longitudinal
  studies including panel and cohort studies
• users of longitudinal data will normally want to
  combine data collected at different times - data
  are more complex to use than other types of
  survey data
• ESDS Longitudinal provides additional value-added
  services to minimise these complexities

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Longitudinal Data

• four main studies, that are primarily UK Research
  Council
• British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
• British birth cohort studies
• National Child Development Survey (NCDS)
• British Cohort Study 1970 (BCS70)
• Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)
• also possible forthcoming Medical Research
  Council population study datasets 1946 Birth
  Cohort

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National Child Development Study (NCDS)

• cohort born in a single week in 1958
• data collected at birth ages 7, 11, 16, 23, 33,
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• a unique resource for investigating social
  mobility and the impact on later life of
  childhood conditions
• coverage includes a wide range of social,
  economic, health and psychological issues

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Types of qualitative data

• diverse data types in-depth interviews
  semi-structured interviews focus groups oral
  histories mixed methods data open-ended survey
  questions case notes/records of meetings
  diaries/research diaries
• multimedia audio, video, photos and text (most
  common is interview transcriptions)
• formats digital, paper, analogue audio-visual
• data structures - differ across different
  document types

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Qualitative Data Collections

• data from National Research Council (ESRC)
  individual research grant awards
• data from ESRC Programme research grant awards
• data from classic social science studies
• Peter Townsend poverty, old age and Katherine
  Buildings
• Paul Thompson oral history and Edwardians
• Ray Pahl Hertfordshire Villages
  studiesNational Social Policy and Social Change
  Archive
• other funders/sources
• focus on DIGITAL collections, but also facilitate
  paper-based archiving

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Qualidata Online

• Creation of digital multimedia resources that
  integrate a wealth of existing primary and
  secondary materials
• catalogues of interview summaries
• full electronic interview transcripts
• thematic browsing of interview transcripts
• collections of digital sound clips
• a set of contextual images
• background information and press reviews on the
  original study
• details of publications based upon secondary
  studies of the collection
• an account of the digitisation methodology

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International data themes

• Databanks cover
• economic performance and development
• trade, industry and markets
• employment
• demography, migration and health
• governance
• human development
• social expenditure
• education
• science and technology
• land use and the environment

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International data providers

• databanks originate from
• International Monetary Fund
• OECD
• United Nations
• World Bank
• Eurostat
• International Labour Organisation
• UK Office for National Statistics
• freely available to UK academics data licensing
  costs are paid by ESRC
• datasets delivered over the web via Beyond 20/20
• access using Athens username and password

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International Survey Data

• ESDS International at the UK Data Archive (UKDA)
  can help users to locate and acquire data from
  other archives within Europe and worldwide, using
  a series of reciprocal agreements with the
  individual institutions. Datasets include
• Eurobarometer
• International Social Survey Programme
• World Values Survey

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Census Registration Service

• The Census Registration Service provides
  one-stop registration for
• Census Dissemination Unit from MIMAS (University
  of Manchester)
• Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS) from EDINA
  (University of Edinburgh)
• Census Interaction Data Service (Universities of
  Leeds and St Andrews)
• Samples of Anonymised Records from the Cathie
  Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research
  (University of Manchester)

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AHDS History

• AHDS History is one of the five Subject Centres
  of the Arts and Humanities Data Service.
  ahds.ac.uk
• AHDS History collects, preserves, and promotes
  the use of digital resources, which result from
  or support historical research, learning and
  teaching.

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Secondary analysis potential

• description
• comparative research, restudy or follow-up study
• augment data you collect e.g. expand sample size
• re-analysis or secondary analysis
• research design and methodological advancement
• verification
• teaching and learning

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ESDS Facilitating greater usage

• encourage
• researchers to consult existing data sources
• use of real data in teaching and learning
• make obtaining data more straightforward
• promotion exploit existing and new networks
• provide online resources
• provide support and training

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Supporting the user

• courses and training
• specialist support, including help desk, mailing
  list, discussion lists and newsletters
• web-based user guides to the datasets
• teaching datasets, online samplers
• online workbooks, exemplars and FAQs
• web-based visualisation interface

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Workshops and training programme

• service specific and joint workshops
• awareness days for new users
• thematic data resources events
• data confrontation specific datasets data
  handling skills methodological issues analytic
  skills - introductory and advanced level
• train the trainers workshops
• online training materials

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Teaching materials

• tailor-made datasets
• guides to using data in teaching
• guides to using software and exemplars

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X4L project Survey Data in Teaching enhancing
critical thinking and data numeracy

• increase the use of real data sources held within
  the JISC portfolio of HE/FE research, teaching
  and learning resources in the classroom
• improve the data literacy of GCE A level and
  university students to
• enable a better understanding of the use of
  social science data as applied to real-life
  problems
• enhance skills in manipulating numerical data in
  textbooks, newspapers or reports
• become critical consumers of this data
• uses the study of crime in society to show how
  existing data sources can be utilised, and as
  such, this project is relevant to a range of
  social science disciplines
• sociology, politics, psychology and media studies
  citizenship studies
• resources can be used for A level syllabi but are
  also highly applicable for undergraduate and
  postgraduate learning

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• Contact
• www.esds.ac.uk
• help_at_esds.ac.uk
• ESDS FAQ www.esds.ac.uk/about/faq.asp