The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Karen Dennison UK Data Archive Improving access to government datasets 18 January 2007

What is the ESDS? national data archiving and dissemination service jointly supported by: –Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) –Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

UK Data Archive, Essex Manchester Information and Associated Services (MIMAS), Manchester Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR), Manchester Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), Essex Partners

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 data for research and teaching purposes within the UK Higher and Further Education sectors and beyond

Sources of data central government international/intergovernmental organisations individual academics with research grants market research agencies historical sources other data archives worldwide

Types of data quantitative –micro data are the coded numerical responses to surveys with a separate record for each individual respondent –macro data are aggregate figures, for example country-level economic indicators –data formats include SPSS, Stata and tab delimited formats qualitative –in-depth interviews, diaries, anthropological field notes and the complete answers to survey questions –data formats include Excel, Word and RTF

Data collection 4,000+ datasets in the collection 200+ new datasets are added each year 40,000+ datasets distributed worldwide per year Government data include: –the large-scale government surveys –Census data (for UK HE/FE via CRS)

Access to data Data Catalogue and Major studies online registration using Athens agreement to End User Licence anyone with an Athens id can register some data are restricted to certain user types and/or purposes instant download service order data on CD order data from another national archive online data analysis tools - Nesstar

ESDS Nesstar Catalogue nesstar.esds.ac.uk/webview.index.asp online data exploration and analysis large-scale government data, teaching datasets frequencies simple data analysis graphs, pie-charts, scatterplots, maps compute and recode export tables to Excel and PDF subset by case and/or variable download in various formats

Help for users Central help desk - accessing and using data and using the most popular data handling and analysis software Four specialist data services ESDS Government ESDS International ESDS Longitudinal ESDS Qualidata

Help for users Each specialist service provides – help desk and web site dedicated survey pages JISCmail news list web-based FAQs training courses and publicity events news bulletins and articles resources (links to other sites) teaching datasets and/or exemplars enhanced documentation e.g. dataset and software guides statistical guides (SPSS, Stata, weighting) variables consistent over time on specific surveys (ESDS Government) thematic guides

Special Licence data more detailed versions of Annual Population Survey, Labour Force Survey, 2001 Census (HSAR) justification for access to more detailed data/description intended use clauses on –standards and methods for disclosure control for any outputs –right of depositor to screen outputs –data and site security –data destruction –Sanctions

Geography

Possible future developments Bespoke data analysis service based on cost recovery Nesstar –time series –widening access to commercial users

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