1. ESDS Government Resources for Government Crime Surveys ESDS Government Centre for Census and Survey Research University of Manchester

2. ESDS Government Funded by ESRC, part of larger ESDS since 2003 Supports major UK data series –Large surveys conducted, usually by government, e.g: British Crime Survey Labour Force Survey General Household Survey Health Survey for England etc –Repeated cross-sections, often continuous –Important, widely used microdata Joint service –Team at UK Data Archive ingest and archive data –Team at Manchester deal with users –Registration for the data managed by ESDS centrally

3. Role Promoting the use of the data Navigating users through the right materials Creating additional materials to help users discover datasets and supporting materials Encouraging good practice Bridging the gap between data collector and users

4. A Good Place to start... Crime Theme Crime guide provides an overview of data sources including crime Theme page provides links to –Crime guide –Data pages –Relevant other sites and resources

5. What do our users use the data for? 2 online searchable databases: Current Usage: Registration information records the research use to which data is put. We share registration information on our web site if the user permits Publications: Users are requested to inform ESDS of publications, but we also harvest information from the ISI WOK bibliographic database

6. Variable search Variable search based on the names and labels of variables

7. Other web-based resources to support users Guiding new users through specific datasets e.g. BCS –Survey pages, FAQs, Starting Analysis, Variables search, Publications database, Data usage search Methodological Guides SPSS Stata Guide to weighting Analysing Change Over Time Working with survey files: using hierarchical data, matching files and pooling data Thematic Guides to using the government surveys Teaching datasets Links to other useful web resources

8. Outreach events Introductory workshops Joint workshops with other ESDS services Methods workshops Research conferences Dataset user meetings Other presentations Posters

9. Help-desk Several hundred a year Range of different ranges of complexity: –How do I get access to the BCS? –Which weight should I use? –What level of geography can I get? –Why does my analysis show high levels of missing data? –The documentation says variable X is in the data but I cant find it Help desk involves collaboration with UKDA, HO, ONS, NatCen etc

10. Keeping in touch Biannual newsletter Join our email list for news esds-govsurveys@jiscmail.ac.uk Home page contains news –Our news –New data

11. And in ESDS as a whole...

12. For Further info: Helpdesk: govsurveys@esds.ac.uk (0161) 275 1980 Website: http://www.esds.ac.uk/government JISCmail: esds-govsurveys@jiscmail.ac.uk CRIM-BCS-USERS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

14. Friends of ours...

16. http://surveynet.ac.uk http://surveynet.ac.uk http://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/survey -resources-network.html

18. Survey pages

19. Guiding new users through...

20. What do our users use the data for? 2 online searchable databases: Current Usage: Registration information records the research use to which data is put. We share registration information on our web site if the user permits Publications: Users are requested to inform ESDS of publications, but we also harvest information from the ISI WOK bibliographic database

21. Variable search Variable search based on the names and labels of variables

22. Statistical/analysis guides Introduction to SPSS (uses HSE) Introduction to STATA (uses LFS) Weighting the social surveys Analysing Change Over Time Working with survey files: using hierarchical data, matching files and pooling data

23. Teaching datasets Cut-down data for teaching 2000 data – core sample Excludes boosts Includes weights for individual and household analysis 55 variables User guide