Richard Wiseman

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Mind the Gap Global Data Sharing
Richard Wiseman Celia Russell ESDS
International, Mimas IASSIST 2009
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Mind the gap(s)

• Gap one many people still unaware of the wealth
  of international data now available
• How can we make people more aware of existing
  international data sources?
• Gap two international data is well used by
  research students, but less so in teaching
• How can we encourage entry level learners to use
  more international data?

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Closing the gaps

• Gap one by identifying and removing the barriers
  to access international data (ESDS International)
• Gap two by the development of easy to access,
  online teaching materials based around an
  international data theme.

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Structure of Presentation

• Minding the gap
• Barriers to international data use
• Jumping the barriers and the role of ESDS
  International
• Learning and teaching
• Countries and Citizens
• The new UN Millennium Development Goal e-learning
  materials
• Conclusions

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International data

• Macro, country-level time series data typically
  produced by intergovermental agencies such as the
  UN World Bank and IMF such as the World
  Development Indicators
• Micro international surveys, typically produced
  by academic sector such as Eurobarometer

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ESDS International

• part of the UK Economic and Social data service
• provides free web-based access to key
  international macro level databanks
• helps users locate and acquire international
  micro level datasets
• promotes the use of international datasets in
  research and teaching across a range of
  disciplines
• is run by Mimas at the University of Manchester
  and the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex

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Macro International Data Providers

• International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
  Development (OECD)
• United Nations (UN)
• World Bank
• Eurostat
• International Labour Organisation (ILO)
• UK Office for National Statistics
• International Energy Agency

Balance of Payment Statistics Direction of Trade
Statistics Government Finance Statistics
International Financial Statistics World
Economic Outlook
ESDS International provides free online access to
the full versions of the latest releases of a
total of 35 major international databases to the
UK academic community.
Global Development Finance World Development
Indicators Africa Development Indicators
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Gap one barriers to use of international data

• Prohibitive data license costs
• Lack of awareness of available data
• Different service providers
• Multiple registration systems
• Size and complexity of datasets
• Lack of integrated user support service
• Lack of appropriate data handling skills

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Jumping the barriers

• National licensing agreements allow data to be
  free at the point of use
• Dataset guides provide consistent and
  comprehensive documentation

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Plus a dedicated help desk
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Dataset Guide
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Jumping the barriers

• National licensing agreements allow data to be
  free at the point of use
• Dataset guides provide consistent and
  comprehensive documentation
• Awareness raising
• Programme of training and courses
• Single web interface to all the databanks
• Freely available data guide creates single portal
  to many more resources
• E-learning materials

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usage
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Gap two learning and teaching

• Programme of face-to-face training courses and
  workshops over the period 2003 to present
• e-Learning materials based on international data

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Countries and Citizens

• An e-learning web based learning resource ESDS
  International launched last year
• Intermediate level resource on combining
  different types of data
• Well used teaching and learning resource
• Used by over 34,000 unique IPs (our best measure
  of number of individual users)
• 54,854 individual page views (once all the web
  crawlers etc had been removed)
• Introductory modules most popular

Unit 1 - Linking International Macro and Micro
Data the basics Unit 2 - Making cross-national
comparisons using macro data Unit 3 - Making
cross-national comparisons using micro data Unit
4 - Combining macro and micro data Unit 5 -
Multilevel modelling using macro and micro data
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Our new resource

• Our new learning resource is based on the UN
  Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• Focused on cross-national data location, access
  and simple data analysis
• Aimed at entry level learners
• Based as far as possible on freely available data

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About the Millennium Development Goals

• The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight
  specific goals to be met by 2015 that aim to
  combat extreme poverty across the world.
• These goals were created at the UN Millennium
  Summit in New York in 2000.
• Not new ideas agreement on quantifiable
  indicators
• The current official list of MDGs includes 8
  Goals, 21 Targets and 60 Indicators

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The MDGs as a data resource

• The goals themselves have formed the global
  policy framework for international development
• Progress towards each goal is measured by a
  series of quantifiable indicators
• These cross national, time series indicators are
  freely and widely available, frequently cited and
  well documented

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The Eight MDG Goals

• End Poverty and Hunger
• Universal primary Education
• Gender Equality
• Reduce child mortality
• Maternal Health
• Combat HIV/AIDS
• Environmental Sustainability
• Global Partnership for development

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Example of a Millennium Development Goal

• Goal 5 Improve maternal health
• Target Between 1990 and 2015, reduce the
  maternal mortality ratio by three quarters
• Indicators
• Maternal mortality ratio
• Proportion of births attended by skilled health
  personnel
• Contraceptive prevalence rate
• Adolescent birth rate
• Antenatal care coverage (at least one visit and
  at least four visits)
• Unmet need for family planning

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Why use the MDGS in learning and teaching?

• To promote data handling in a real world context
• To allow the creation of e-learning materials
  based on freely available data
• To encourage learners to explore the web for
  other international data resources

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The audience

• Are undergraduate social science students in
  economics, international development .
• May or may not be familiar with time series data
• have basic computer literacy
• Are accustomed to some form of online learning
• may have been given the learning materials for
  use in their course
• are geographically dispersed and accessing the
  materials within a classroom or library within a
  VLE, or at home via the internet

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Resource Contents

• Guide to ESDS International
• Types of international data
• Guide to the MDGs
• Step by step activities
• searching
• accessing
• citing.
• visualising
• locating metadata
• All activities are available as animated
  e-Tutorials
• Links and resources - contains links to relevant
  UN MDG related interfaces.

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Variety of teaching strategies

• Instructional tutorials
• GIS interfaces
• user-guides
• worked exercises
• Annotated e-tutorials based on Camtasia Studio 5

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UN MGDs e-learning materials demo