1. MethodBox Data, Methods, People Shoaib Sufi Manchester University shoaib.sufi@manchester.ac.uk 02 July 2012 www.methodbox.org

2. Homepage Web 2.0 Find Data Upload Methods Link Share Collaborate www.methodbox.org

3. How MethodBox fits in UK Data Archive (UKDA) UK Data Archive (UKDA) MethodBox Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Survey Curation Survey Mapping diagram not to scale Survey Navigation Survey Commissioning & Collection etc… Improving Access & Use social Save in system Variable results ✓ ✓ ✓

4. Research Cycle Data Analysis Models Results Research Questions Publications, Reports or Decisions Resources Methods Context Conclusions www.methodbox.org

5. Data Discover – find out which other datasets might be relevant to your research Subset – build, save and download manageable selections of variables from many sources Learn – compare variables and save your searches Upload – your own data www.methodbox.org

6. Example National Dataset Health Surveys for England Available from the ESDS Large-scale (participants * variables) – 16000 * 1800 Annual survey since 1991 Potential for greater use Key barrier: – Not knowing it might be of interest – extracting a research-ready subset of data MethodBox – Makes searching and extracting data from the ESDS straightforward – Supports data format standards. www.methodbox.org

7. Examples: HSE 2006 13 pages208 pages Variable Definitions Variable Categories Variable SPSS code Questionnaire Instructions 224 pages Questions used To set variables 148 pages Survey Description 9 pages Variable Value Domains 351 pages 46 MB data files Data and Variable Codebook X 19 All HSE @1800 Variables

10. Shopping for variables from across different years of survey collections…

12. Look at variable information in one place

13. Subset your data as data extracts

14. Browsing for data extracts made by a social network of data archive users…

15. Case study: Andrew Renehan Clinical Senior Lecturer/Honorary Consultant, Christie Hospital NHS Trust www.methodbox.org

16. Upload & Share Data www.methodbox.org

17. Methods Publish and share – methods and scripts Link – e.g. your data subsets with method scripts; help you remember what you did Any file type – supported as a Method or Script, e.g: – Stata, R, SPSS for syntax –.doc,.txt,.pdf for explaining your algorithm www.methodbox.org

18. Methods

19. Linking When making a subset or uploading a script View your links View links made by others

20. Smoking example www.methodbox.org

21. Case study: Alan Marshall Research Associate, The Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research, Manchester PhD and continuing work. Developed a methodology for the local estimation/projections of limiting long term illness and disability in UK districts Explored place on impact of retirement on health Projections 2001 to 2031 www.methodbox.org More information at http://www.esds.ac.uk/government/docs/smallareaestimation.pdf

22. / data_extracts/364 Raw HSE 2001 data / data_extracts/365 Raw HSE 2002 data / scripts/70 Prepare HSE 2001 data / scripts/70 Prepare HSE 2001 data / scripts/69 Prepare HSE 2000 data / scripts/69 Prepare HSE 2000 data / data_extracts/414 Prepared HSE 2000 data / data_extracts/415 Prepared HSE 2001 Data /scripts/71 Merge HSE Data and add columns /scripts/71 Merge HSE Data and add columns /data_extracts/413 Merged HSE Data /data_extracts/412 Census Data /scripts/72 Merge HSE & Census /scripts/72 Merge HSE & Census /data_extracts/411 Merged HSE & Census Data /scripts/73 Add Regression factors /scripts/73 Add Regression factors /scripts/76 /scripts/75 Regression Factors /scripts/76 /scripts/75 Regression Factors /scripts/74 Estimate disability for district /scripts/74 Estimate disability for district Method Data Workflow

23. Linking methods, data and people

24. People Connect - with other researchers, collaborate and form research groups Share - your resources with other users or groups Review - Make private notes and public comments, let others know what you like/think www.methodbox.org

25. Facilitating a social network of data archive users… …toward a reward environment for sharing data, methods, and expertise www.methodbox.org

26. Sharing and attribution Private Group Public Credit

27. Private notes and Public comments Resources can be ‘Liked’ www.methodbox.org

28. Sustainability Developed and sustained by the myGrid team CS@Manchester University - funded until 2014 with more funding sought Production Server, Production services: – Exclusive dedicated hardware (16 CPU cores, 24 GB Ram, 4 TB disk) – service monitoring and automated backup Partnership with UKDA www.methodbox.org

29. A Resource for National and International Infrastructure www.methodbox.org National e- Infrastructure for Social Simulation Resource Access Your Data, Your Methods ShareRetain

30. MethodBox now Open Serving: – 30+ Data Series – 150+ Data Sets – 450+ Data files Hosting: – 125+ Users – 220+ Subsets – 60+ Methods/Scripts Unique visits: – 1550+ May 2011 to June 2012 Register now at www.methodbox.org

31. Take Home Message PhD Students/Researchers Find the data for your research Supports your data preparation Remember what you did Connect with others Promote your work Supervisors/Collaborators Have material in one place for training/learning purposes Remember what happened after the PhD student/collaboration Credit recorded for any derived work Demo: Thursday 5th July, ESRC Stand in JCR 12:45pm Data Providers: publish data, improve/increase use, social sharing www.methodbox.org

32. Vanessa Higgins Rob Haines Caroline Jay Sam Smith Sarah King-Hele Current, alumni & associated

33. Questions ?