1. IASSIST 2007 Montreal, Quebec
Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences: A Model for Collaboration
IASSIST 2007
Montreal, Quebec

2. The Odum Institute
The Odum Institute is the oldest Institute at America’s First Public University
Established in 1924, Odum is a multidisciplinary institute for research in the social sciences.
The Institute maintains one of the country’s largest archive of computer-readable social science data. Holdings include national and international economic, electoral, demographic, financial, health, public opinion, and other types of data to meet a variety of research and teaching needs.
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3. Odum Data-PASS Focus Areas
Virtual Data Center Adoption
National Network of State Polls (NNSP)
Harris Polls
Private Research Organizations
Distributed Storage
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4. Partnering with Harvard MIT Data Center in adopting VDC
Spires/OpenText > DDI/XML
Coordinated Question Level Search Modification
Currently testing next generation called Dataverse Network
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5. National Network of State Polls & Harris Polls
Working with polling agencies to close gaps in historical collection
Assisting NNSP members with the ingest process
Building on existing relationships
Partnering with Harris Interactive to find missing surveys in the Louis Harris Data Center at the Odum Institute
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6. Private Research Organizations
The late-1940s and 1950s witnessed the rise of private organizations and firms that deal almost exclusively in the production and analysis of information, knowledge, and public policy. These organizations are potentially a major source of social science research on important public policy issues.
Organizations such as Research Triangle Institute (RTI International), the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), Westat, and ABT Associates have played important roles in the advancement of scientific research in the social sciences.
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7. Saving the Kennedy Assassination Study
Following 9/11 NORC researchers wanted to replicate questions after the 1963 assassination study
Data could not be found until the old card catalog was found and pointed to holdings of boxes in storage
After six weeks, ten boxes of punched cards were retrieved
Cards were hand-delivered to a New York firm
Card reader was refurbished
Data/documentation needed to be interpreted
Multi-punched  Single-punched conversion
With persistent effort a clean data file emerged and was archived
Example of the  “Data Rescue” Process 
Identify 
Just after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Tom Smith was reminded of the study NORC completed just after another American tragedy, the John F. Kennedy assassination. He remembered the detailed questions  gauging how Americans were coping in 1963 and  wondered how those strategies compared to this current  situation.  He and his colleagues set out to replicate these  questions in the National Tragedy Study in First,  he needed that early survey. Locate The archives didn’t have that 1963 study.  Internal databases of records were consulted with no  indication that the data or the punched cards existed in the 20,000+ cubic feet of storage.  A retired NORC librarian was called in who thought the cards were in storage.  Old hard-copy inventories of the materials in bulk storage were reviewed, but they were unable definitively confirm or rule out the existence of the cards.    A second former employee was contacted who recalled the existence of an older card catalog listing the holdings of some of boxes in storage.  After six weeks ten boxes were retrieved from an off-site  storage facility in Chicago.   
Data Conversion   
The data had to be interpreted and converted to a current machine-readable medium.  The 38 year-old cards had to be read   The data had to be converted from multiple-punched data to single punched data  National Data Conversion Institute in NYC could read the cards.   A single set of the cards existed, so the cards were hand-delivered to NY.  Complications arose in reading the “near perfect” card collection.   The card-reader needed refurbishing   The first test file was corrupted   The firm didn’t know how to spread multiple-punched data  
Preservation 
Ultimately, with senior NORC staff working diligently  with the Institute, a clean data file emerged. With the  data fully recovered, NORC created a final SPSS  system file with detailed labels and archived it with  the Roper Center.  If Tom Smith had not worked with these data in the  mid-1970s, the data would have remained a hidden  treasure—no finding aids pointed researchers to this  valuable dataset.  Smith and Forstrom concluded  “…it took persistent efforts, the assistance of two ex- employees, and a bit of serendipity to unearth the  data. Moreover, once recovered we had data on a  medium that was so antiquated that it took four  months of extensive efforts to convert it to a modern,  user-friendly format.”  
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8. Data-PASS Efforts
Roper is negotiating with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) to preserve valuable datasets
Odum has been working with RTI International, a private research organization located in Research Triangle Park, NC, to develop a strategy for requesting data from PROs nationwide.
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9. Roper Center Archive of public opinion survey data
Established in 1947 at Williams College
Core historical data collections:
Gallup Polls, 1936-present
Fortune Magazine surveys,
American Soldiers Surveys,
Data files for over 15,000 surveys
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10. Roper Center – NARA Objective of collaboration USIA Data Collection
Recover, preserve, document and make accessible the United States Information Agency Office of Research surveys,
USIA Data Collection
Estimated at over 2,000 surveys
Survey results contributed to formulation of US foreign and defense policy
Some surveys are the only opinion surveys available from certain countries
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11. Roper Center – NARA Leveraging relative strengths (NARA)
structure for working with the State Department in the context of its mandate to preserve federal electronic records
standards for appraising, cataloging and preserving electronic records
permanent storage and file-level access for all materials related to the collection
access to additional USIA records, reports and related federal government records
NARA provides:
structure for working with the State Department in the context of its mandate for preservation of federal electronic records
standards for appraising, cataloging and preserving electronic records
permanent storage and file-level access for all materials related to the collection
access to additional USIA records, reports and related federal government records
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12. Roper Center – NARA Leveraging relative strengths (Roper)
potential flexibility in communications and approach
federal agency-to-agency protocols may not be as flexible as required for a project of this type
experience working with a variety of organizations to acquire data resources
active migration and management of data
more streamlined access to data-based materials
access to related public opinion survey data from the private sector and non-federal public sector
Roper Center provides:
potential flexibility in communications and approach
Federal government agency-to-agency protocols may not be as flexible as required for a project of this type
experience working with a variety of organizations to acquire data resources
active migration and management of data
more streamlined access to data-based materials
access to related public opinion survey data from the private sector and non-federal public sector
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13. Benefits to Cooperation
Preservation of valuable datasets
Many researchers gain access to additional material
PROs gain electronic access to previous work
PROs receive digital curation assistance
Potential to reduce PROs storage costs
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14. Barriers to Preserving Data
Contract restrictions
High ingest costs
Poor metadata
Labor intensive operations
Uniqueness requires custom solutions
PRO’s lost opportunity costs
Overhead associated with building relationships
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15. Questions from PRO Business Offices
If datasets are assets, what is their value to our PRO? Can they be used to leverage existing research or identify new areas of interest?
Do datasets have value to other organizations that might be willing to pay for them?
What legal and technical issues are involved?
What costs are associated with dataset archival?
How can we build a business case for preservation at our PRO
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16. Approaching PROs Do background research
Build on existing relationships
Assess Different “PRO” business models
Contractors for hire
PROs with their own research agenda
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17. Early research data life cycle intervention
Assist researchers and PROs with preservation requirements during proposal process
Preparing for preservation at the proposal level can ensure
That: Datasets are “born digital”, making preservation affordable.
And PRO business models are more affordable
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18. Preserving Future Studies
Funding agencies are key
Ultimate owners of research data
Could request and enforce archival of data
Issues are easily addressed early in Life Cycle
Single point of contact for many PROs
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19. Digital Curation Keys to Dataset Collection Development
Knowing the producers’ & consumers’ needs
Educating producers on preservation requirements
Early involvement in the research data life cycle
Building and Maintaining relationships
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20. Thank You
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