Behind the scenes at ESDS International Keith Cole, Director of Mimas Fourth Annual ESDS International Conference London, December 2008

Mimas is … A national data centre Funded by JISC and the ESRC Providing the UK academic community with access to data and information resources to support teaching, learning and research across a wide range of disciplines

ESDS International – creating value and adding benefits national licensing agreements data free at the point of use updated with latest releases single web interface supporting website effective dissemination and outreach specialist helpdesk – we receive around 300 user queries a year data quality checking

Data checking We undertake around 100 data loads per year Each database converted into Beyond 20/20 is data checked This usually takes about 2-3 hrs Problems are reported back to the data providers

Data loader checks Checking the right number of tables are present Checking the starts and ends of series are correct Checking that data such as zeros are loaded as zeros, negative values as negative values, n/a data as n/a, and weird values such as ranges or dummy value are correctly represented. Checking that the documentation embedded into the database is linked in, and footnotes loaded correctly

Data checker checks Data from Beyond 20/20 is checked against values in the previous release Regular, periodic random series checks against the IGO’s proprietary interface (roughly once every 6 months for monthly databases and yearly for annual databases) investigate queries about the data raised by users

An early error …

Structure of the day Morning: –data provider sessions –Q&A Lunchtime –poster session –talk by the IMF Afternoon: –Researcher session –Parliamentarians –ESDS International –Don’t forget your evaluation forms!

Poster session I Exchange Rate Volatility and Trade Flows in Pakistan Imran Sharif Chaudhry Puzzles in financial development and economic growth Binam Raj Ghimire Mick Jagger's Arithmetics: What we can learn from subjective satisfactions for well-being design Vincent Marcus

Poster session II Patterns of pro-poor growth and its determinants Julius Olaogun Is Generalized Trust Influenced by Occupation of Respondent? Mark Reader Financial Liberalization and Economic Growth Anoshirvan Taghipour

Poster session III Migrant Flows in a Changing World Henry Telli Home Bias in Foreign Direct Investments Kristina Vasileva Capital Account Liberalization and Currency Crisis Malgorzata Sulimierska, Case Studies Susan Noble