Part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service and the UK Data Archive. Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. Counting Heads: Enhancing the Historical Censuses Collection for Learning and Teaching (Part 1) Cressida Chappell and Hamish James History Data Service

AHC-UK © History Data Service Aim To develop the Collection of Historical and Contemporary Census Data and Related Materials (CHCC) into a major learning and teaching resource and increase its use in learning and teaching Funded by the JISC for 3 years (October September 2003) under the DNER Development Programme as part of an initiative to enhance JISC services for learning and teaching

AHC-UK © History Data Service Partners MIMAS and Census Dissemination Unit, University of Manchester School of Geography, University of Leeds Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research, University of Manchester History Data Service, University of Essex LTSN Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Glasgow UK Data Archive, University of Essex

AHC-UK © History Data Service Background Considerable scope for widening use of CHCC data for learning and teaching Census data has great value across many disciplines Census data is used extensively in academic research BUT census data is significantly under used in learning and teaching Clear evidence that they could be more widely used in learning and teaching Working knowledge of how to access and analyse census data will be of great benefit to students from a wide variety of academic disciplines

AHC-UK © History Data Service Objectives To promote effective student use of networked services across learning and teaching To increase the CHCC user base in learning and teaching and to build new user communities To improve awareness about the contexts in which census data can be used in learning and teaching To improve access to primary data sources by linking together data extraction, visualisation and exploration tools To reduce the work needed by tutors to use CHCC data in learning and teaching To speed the use of 2001 Census outputs

AHC-UK © History Data Service Project Deliverables A range of supporting learning and teaching resources for teachers and students Resource discovery tools and cross-searchable metadata for the CHCC and associated learning and teaching materials Improved web-based data extraction and data exploration and visualisation interfaces to the CHCC suitable for student use Enhancement of the CHCC through adding and linking other information

AHC-UK © History Data Service CHCC Data Census Area Statistics Sample of Anonymised Records Historical Censuses Collection

AHC-UK © History Data Service Census Area Statistics 1971, 1981, 1991 (& 2001) Census Area Statistics (CAS) –Small Area Statistics (SAS) –Local Base Statistics (LBS) Tables of aggregated data for a range of spatial units Consisting of cross-tabulations of two or more census variables Containing information about households and individuals covering topics such as age, gender, occupation, qualifications, ethnicity, social class, employment, family structure, amenities and tenure

AHC-UK © History Data Service Sample of Anonymised Records 1991 (& 2001) Sample of Anonymised Records (SARs) –2% Individual SAR 1.1 million individuals Full range of census topics on individuals and summary information about households –1% Household SAR 216,000 households ½ million persons within households Allows linkage between household and family members Full range of census topics and derived household and family level variables

AHC-UK © History Data Service Casweb Web Interface to 1991 CAS Intuitive web interface with 3-step selection process List and map based selection options Outputs boundaries integrated with the Census data

AHC-UK © History Data Service Casweb 1. Select area - from map or a list 2. Select tables 3. Select variables from tables

AHC-UK © History Data Service Download data Text format Mappable format –ArcView –MapInfo MIF/MID

AHC-UK © History Data Service Text format

AHC-UK © History Data Service Mappable format Census data Crown copyright Boundary data copyright Ed-Line Consortium Unemployment – Tyne and Wear

AHC-UK © History Data Service Interactive exploration of Census data within your Web browser Leicestershire sample data available to unregistered users Registered census users may select county Crown copyright Descartes is the result of research being undertaken at the German National Research Centre for Information Technology (GMD) and with the company Dialogis. Descartes

AHC-UK © History Data Service Casweb/Descartes Integration Simplified Interface Temporal visualisation (1971 – 2001) Simple mapping of census variables

AHC-UK © History Data Service Learning and Teaching Pathways

AHC-UK © History Data Service Learning and Teaching Pathways

AHC-UK © History Data Service Learning and Teaching Pathways

AHC-UK © History Data Service Learning and Teaching Pathways

AHC-UK © History Data Service Further information CHCC Project Website Census Information Gateway Descartes Leicestershire demonstrator dataset for unregistered users

Part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service and the UK Data Archive. Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the Arts and Humanities Research Board.

AHC-UK © History Data Service Project Deliverables A range of supporting learning and teaching resources for teachers and students A portal to facilitate resource discovery of census data and associated learning and teaching materials Improved web-based data extraction and data exploration and visualisation interfaces suitable for student use Enhancement of the CHCC through adding and linking other information Historical Censuses Collection deliverables –Web based data extraction –Learning and teaching materials

AHC-UK © History Data Service Historical Censuses Collection 1881 Census of England, Wales and Scotland –100% sample created by volunteers for the Genealogical Society of Utah –Revised version created by the Future of Work team at the University of Essex History Department 1851 Census of England, Wales and Scotland –2% sample created by Dr Michael Anderson 36 smaller area studies created by academics Aggregate data: the Great Britain Historical Database and the Database of Irish Statistics

AHC-UK © History Data Service Making the HCC Accessible Datasets created at various times by various groups using various technologies Datasets vary in layout, coding, standardisation, and information transcribed from census enumerators’ books Improve the compatibility of the data collections which make up the HCC by standardising presentation, data structure, formats and coding Large volume of data can overwhelm people, and computers too Provide searching and extraction methods to obtain smaller subsets from the HCC

AHC-UK © History Data Service Web Based Data Extraction Extraction system allows users to locate and extract subsets of data from the HCC HCC is quite large (~30GB) making online analysis difficult to implement –Queries are slow to run ( minutes) –Large amounts of data to send over the network (approaching a gigabyte for many counties) These factors suggest an online extraction system rather than an online analysis system –User can use software and hardware of their choosing to analyse the the extracted data –Download can be conducted by the user when the network is less busy –Large or complex requests can be scheduled to maintain an even level of system performance

AHC-UK © History Data Service enter web site log on review query log on and download data User Experience define query refine query download options system s user system generates data system processes request

AHC-UK © History Data Service

Extracting Data Extraction –Underlying query is SQL, but this is hidden from user –Restrictions in the query are limited to controlled lists of values provided in lookup tables Complex experience needs to be managed ….

AHC-UK © History Data Service Timetable Prototype October 2001 –Testing in conjunction with Learning and Teaching materials Live system June 2002

Part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service and the UK Data Archive. Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the Arts and Humanities Research Board.