Title: The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Karen Dennison Economic and Social Data Service UK Data Archive Government Chief Social Researcher
1The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS)
Karen DennisonEconomic and Social Data
ServiceUK Data ArchiveGovernment Chief Social
Researchers Office Information Seminar Cardiff,
21 June 2004
2What is the ESDS?
- national data archiving and dissemination service
running from 1 Jan. 2003 2008 - jointly supported by
- Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
- Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
3Partners
- UK Data Archive, Essex
- MIMAS, Manchester
- Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey
Research (CCSR), Manchester - Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER),
Essex
4ESDS 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 a range of
disparate resources for UK Higher and Further
Education sectors - core archiving services plus four specialist data
services
5Sources / type of data
- Data for research and teaching purposes and used
in all sectors and for many different disciplines - official agencies - mainly central government
- international statistical time series
- individual academics - research grants
- market research agencies
- public records/historical sources
- qualitative and quantitative
- links to UK census data
- access to international data via links with other
data archives worldwide
6Collection held at UKDA
- 4,000 datasets in the collection
- 200 new datasets are added each year
- 6,500 orders for data per year
- 18,000 datasets distributed worldwide per year
- History data service in-house (AHDS)
- Census Registration Service in-house (CRS)
- specialist units for supporting qualitative and
longitudinal data in-house
7ESDS Core Services
- ESDS Management
- central 'first stop' help desk service
- coherent and flexible collections development
policy - central registration service operating across the
ESDS - universal data portal
- ESDS Access and Preservation
- collections development strategy
- ingest activities - including data and
documentation processing - metadata creation
- data dissemination services
- long-term preservation
8Joining Up
- ESRC
- joined-up portfolio
- implementation of ESRC Datasets Policy
- ESRC Information Strategy
- e-Science initiatives
- JISC
- Information Environment
- Athens / Shibboleth
- Digital Preservation Coalition, The National
Archives / Public Record Office
9Enhanced access to data
- one-stop registration and Athens
- important part of ESRCs goal of establishing a
common entry point for all socio-economic data. - extension of the Census Registration Service
- enhanced data delivery
- Download Now service and Nesstar WebView
- online data delivery ESDS International
- online data delivery ESDS Qualidata
10Accessing data
- Web access to data and metadata
- Data are freely available for the majority of
users - Data supplied in a variety of formats
- statistical package formats (eg spss)
- databases and spreadsheets
- word processed documents
- pdf documents
11Online access to data and user guides
- Web pages - easy to navigate format
- Web catalogue with variable level searching
- Subject browsing - eg major series and UK
geographic focus web pages - Access to online doc - pdf user guides and forms
- Registration
- One-off registration with Athens login
- Online account management and Shopping Basket
ordering - Data Download
- Web Download (SPSS, STATA, TAB, RTF, etc)
- Nesstar - browsing metadata and exploring data
12Nesstar software
- Browse detailed information (metadata) about
these data sources, including links to other
sources - Search facility that can return variables as hits
and open them in context - Do simple data analysis and visualisation on
microdata - Bookmark datasets and analyses
- Download the appropriate subset of data in one of
a number of formats (e.g. SPSS, Excel)
13Data quality issues
- Require exceptionally high quality data for
publishing in Nesstar system. - Helpful if
- Full variable and value labels
- Systematic variable naming across time for
continuous surveys - Literal question text
- Information on weighting
14Specialist data services
- ESDS Government
- ESDS International
- ESDS Longitudinal
- ESDS Qualidata
- Provide
- - dedicated web sites and help desks
- - data and documentation enhancements
- - user support
- - training
15The large-scale government surveys
- General Household Survey/Continuous Household
Survey (NI) - Labour Force Survey/NI LFS
- Health Survey for England/Wales/Scotland
- Family Expenditure Survey/NI FES
- British/Scottish Crime Survey
- Family Resources Survey
- National Food Survey/Expenditure and Food Survey
- ONS Omnibus Survey
- Survey of English Housing
- British Social Attitudes/Scottish Social
Attitudes/Young Peoples Social Attitudes/NI Life
Times - National Travel Survey
- Time Use Survey
- Vital Statistics for England and Wales
16Benefits of the large-scale government datasets
- Good quality data
- Produced by experienced research organisations
- UK/GB - usually nationally representative with
large samples. Interviewers all over country - Good response rates
- Well documented, NISRA, ONS, UKDA, QB etc
- Continuous data
- E.g Continuous Household Survey 1983, allows
comparison over time - Data is largely cross-sectional
- Hierarchical data
- Individual and household
- intra-household differences
- household effects on individuals
17Percentage of women aged 18-49 cohabiting
General Household Survey
18ESDS Government
- Led by CCSR and working closely with the UKDA
- UKDA will continue to be responsible for
acquisition of data and dissemination - dissemination mainly on-line/ much via Nesstar
- CCSR covers added value (help for users and
dataset enhancements) - Theme based approach to adding value
- Year 1 Employment and labour market
- Year 2 Health
- Year 3 Social exclusion
19Help for users
- Workshops and web-based guides on
- on how to get started
- theme based, intro to surveys, access
- introduction to large-scale government datasets
- analysis skills
- Methods and new opportunities
- weighting
- data linkage
- Other CCSR courses
- SPSS/ STATA data analysis methods
- links to ONS publications useful websites
- Helpdesk, Jiscmail list
20Enhancements to datasets
- User consultation
- a set of derived variables to provide
comparability with standard census variables - derivation of some key variables for employment
and labour market analysis on the General
Household Survey and Labour Force Survey - an index of variables that are consistent over
time on a number of surveys. - Geographically referenced variables
- linked to Common GIS interactive web-based
exploration and visualization tool for data with
sub-regional geography. - Teaching datasets
- Labour Force Survey 2002 (links to STATA guide)
- British Crime Survey 2000
- Plan Health Survey for England in 2004
21Interaction
- Developments at ONS and NatCen
- benefit and influence
- encourage interaction with research community
- maximise interests of data depositors,
commissioning departments and research community - User group meetings
- LFS October 2003 (establish annually)
- HSE January 2004
- High level annual research conference for policy
makers, users and producers of government surveys - December 2003 Social Demo Change
- December 2004 health
- Meetings/ongoing liaison with ONS ESDS Govt
22Longitudinal data
- Longitudinal surveys involve repeated surveys of
the same individuals at different points in time - Allow researchers to analyse change at the
individual level - More complex to analyse
23Longitudinal Data
- four main studies, that are primarily UK Research
Council - British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
- British Birth Cohort studies
- National Child Development Survey (NCDS)
- British Cohort Study 1970 (BCS70)
- Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)
- Also possible forthcoming Medical Research
Council population study datasets 1946 Birth
Cohort
24British Household Panel Survey
- Collected and deposited by the ULSC at Essex
- follows the members of 5500 households first
sampled in 1991 - interviews conducted annually
- become a major resource for understanding the
dynamics of British households - coverage includes
- income, labour market behaviour, social and
political values, health, education, housing and
household organisation - Recently large new samples were introduced in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
25British Birth Cohort Studies
- Impact of childhood conditions on later life and
understanding children and families in the UK - National Child Development Study follows a cohort
born in a single week in 1958 - data collected at
birth ages 7, 11, 16, 23, 33, 42 - 1970 British Cohort Study follows a cohort born
in a single week in 1970 - data collected around
birth ages 5, 10, 16, 26 and most recently at
age 30 - Millennium Cohort Study focuses on children born
in 2000 / 2001 - first sweep at 9 months, second
sweep at 3 years - Wide range of social, economic, health, medical
and psychological issues
26International data portfolio
- Regularly updated macro-economic time series
datasets from selected major international
statistical databanks that collectively chart
over 50 years of global economic, industrial and
political change - the International Monetary Fund
- the OECD
- the United Nations
- the World Bank
- Eurostat
- the International Labour Organisation
- the UK Office for National Statistics
- BUT access for UK HE/FE only
- Access to microdata surveys
- Eurobarometers
- International Social Survey Programme
- Other social data via other national data archives
27International data themes
- Databanks cover
- Economic performance and development
- Trade, industry and markets
- Employment
- Demography, migration and health
- Governance
- Human development
- Social expenditure
- Education
- Science and technology
- Land use and the environment
28ESDS Qualidata
- provides access and support for a range of
qualitative datasets, and is hosted by the UK
Data Archive - the work builds on Qualidata's expertise and
international reputation in this area, developed
over the past eight years
29Qualitative data collections
- Data from National Research Council (ESRC)
individual and programme research grant awards - Data from classic social science studies
- Other funders/sources
- Focus on DIGITAL Collections, but also facilitate
paper-based archiving
30Types of qualitative data
- Diverse data types in-depth interviews
semi-structured interviews focus groups oral
histories mixed methods data open-ended survey
questions case notes/records of meetings
diaries/ research diaries - Multi-media audio, video, photos and text (most
common is interview transcriptions) - Formats digital, paper, analogue audio-visual
- Data structures - differ across different
document types
31Classic datasets
- Peter Townsend Poverty, old ageand Katherine
Buildings - Paul Thompson oral history and Edwardians
- Ray Pahl Hertfordshire Villages studies
- National Social Policy and Social Change Archive
32The Census Registration Service
- The Census Registration Service provides one-stop
registration for - Census Dissemination Unit from MIMAS (University
of Manchester) - Census Geography Data Unit (UKBORDERS) from EDINA
(University of Edinburgh) - Census Interaction Data Service (Universities of
Leeds and St Andrews) - Samples of Anonymised Records from the Cathie
Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research
(University of Manchester)
33AHDS History
- AHDS History is one of the five Subject Centres
of the Arts and Humanities Data Service.
http//ahds.ac.uk - AHDS History collects, preserves, and promotes
the use of digital resources, which result from
or support historical research, learning and
teaching.
34The AHDS History collection
- Particularly strong in 19th and 20th century
economic and social history - Census data (1881 100 sample 1851 2 sample
lots of local census returns) - Great Britain Historical Database online
- Taxation materials
- Large scale datasets of Welsh and Irish
historical statistics - Electoral data (poll books for local areas)
- Criminal court records (e.g. a collection of
datasets on violent crimes 1600-1900) - Agricultural statistics (prices, output)
- Surveys of Scottish witchcraft
- State finance data
- Economic indicators/industrial production data
35Secondary analysis potential
- description
- comparative research, restudy or follow-up study
- re-analysis or secondary analysis
- research design and methodological advancement
- verification
- teaching and learning
- Highlighting research potential
36ESDS supporting research and teaching
- service specific help for each service
- help desk, FAQs, analysis support
- generating new researchers
- series of workshops around the country
- teaching datasets, online samplers
- discussion lists, newsletters
37ESDS outreach programme
- Service specific and joint workshops
- awareness days for new users
- thematic data resources events
- data confrontation specific datasets data
handling skills methodological issues analytic
skills - introductory and advanced level - Publicity and publications
- conference presentations, talks ,
- articles in newsletters and journals
- UKDAtabytes ESDS Government newsletters
38Working groups and user forums
- establish working groups to gain input and
feedback on specific ESDS developments - user forum user groups, discussion lists etc
- data creators, eg ONS, Govt. departments, ESRC
- preservation expertise, eg DCC
- teaching and learning bodies such as HE - LTSN,
FE - RSC - data support staff eg subject or data librarians
39- Contact
- www.esds.ac.uk
- help_at_esds.ac.uk
- ESDS FAQ http//www.esds.ac.uk/about/faq.asp