Ruud Luijkx Tilburg University The Netherlands The European Values Study and its metadata: stock taking and the future Ruud Luijkx Tilburg University The Netherlands

European Values Study A longitudinal and international comparative survey research project on basic human values www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu

Short history First wave: 1981 European Countries: France, Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Iceland Non-European Countries: Canada, USA

Original Research Questions Do Europeans share common values? Are values changing? Do Christian values continue to permeate European life and culture? Is a coherent alternative meaning system replacing that of Christianity? What are the implications for European unity?

EVS questionnaire subjects religion morality politics society family & marriage sexuality education work leisure time

Second/Third wave 1990/199 In 1999 also new issues: Modified replication of 1981 More countries from Western and Eastern Europe In 1999 also new issues: solidarity social capital democracy work ethics

Fourth wave 2008 Largely a replication of 1999 All countries of Europe (with more than 100,000 inhabitants) Progress of the fieldwork More emphasis on high quality socio-demographic (background) variables High quality translation of the questionnaires

Our colleagues: the World Values Survey “third wave” (1995-1998) “fourth wave” (2000-2004) “fifth wave”(2005-2007) Overlap in the questionnaire is about 60%

Data dissemmination Through data archives GESIS is the primary data archive for EVS 1981 originally at UKDA 1990 at DANS For/in 1981/1990 only data and questionnaires (later in pdf-format)

(Meta) data 1999 GESIS Codebook explorer GESIS ZACAT Study description Bibliographic citation Study scope Methodology and processing Data-access Data Files Description

(Meta) data 1999—GESIS ZACAT Comparative questions (master questionnaire) with 1981 and 1990 Original question wordings for all languages: question texts, answer categories, and show cards of the questionnaires Explanatory notes concerning differences between national and master questionnaire, difficulties arising from translation, and additional questions used in the national questionnaires were added. http://zacat.gesis.org/webview/index.jsp

Harmonising different waves In 2006 a harmonised data set was released after (post hoc) harmonisation of all Value Surveys since 1981 (ASEP/JDS, EVS-Tilburg, GESIS) Goals: Make all Value Surveys available on line Facilitate simple analyses Disseminate all documentation Web sites where data are available: EVS www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu ASEP/JDS www.jdsurvey.net WVS (Enter from WVS ) ALSO HARMONISING META DATA

Meta data 2008 Improved presentation on ZACAT Including more notes from the translation process DatapluS: Repositories for Enhanced Survey Publications

DatapluS Funded by Surf Foundation Create 2 subject repositories with enriched publications Besides European Values Study (EVS), also Dutch Parliamentary Election Study Enriched with: Syntax codes of constructs, concepts Links to (meta) data (at the variable level)—persistent identifier issue

Work Packages 1,2: INPUT: Enhanced Publications (EVS, DPES) 3: A Sustainable Library Infrastructure for Enhanced Publications: LIS (Tilburg University) Library Twente (presentation Thomas Place) 4: DDI 3.0 Enhanced Publication Editor: CentERdata (Tilburg University); presentation Bart van Nieuwburg 5: Linking to (Meta) Data Stored in Data Archives (GESIS, DANS)

Deliverables 2 subject repositories with enriched publications Enhanced Publication Editor Infrastructure compatible with existing repository systems

Future issues Make more meta data available in a more coordinated way Use version control of (meta)data—also cross linking data releases Further integration of publications and data Integration of data from different sources (macro indicators)