SDA: a 3rd generation tool for teaching and research with microdata

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SDA a 3rd generation tool for teaching and
research with microdata

• Andrew Nicholson ltanichols_at_utm.utoronto.cagt
• Laine Ruus ltlaine.ruus_at_utoronto.cagt
• 2007/01/23

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What this seminar will cover

• Introduction
• Demo of main SDA capabilities Laine Ruus
• Students experience with and questions resulting
  from using SDA Andrew Nicholson
• Advantages and disadvantages for teaching and
  research
• What we know to be coming in future SDA editions
• Questions
• Hands-on exercises

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SDA is brought to you by

• Centre for Computing in the Humanities and Social
  Sciences (CHASS) provides the hardware, buys
  the software, and provides system support
• UT Libraries provides the budget to purchase
  the data, and staff for care, feeding and user
  support (ie Andrew and Laine)

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Students appreciate the
• 24/7 online access
• Can use anywhere without needing special software
  (just a UTORid to login, if off campus)
• Easy to navigate
• Tables and Charts can copied and pasted as is
  into MS Word and Excel

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• Row vs Column fields
• (Dependent vs
• Independent variables)

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• Row vs Column
• (interpreting percentages)

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• Sample vs Weight
• (When to apply the weight?)

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• How to download data from SDA into SPSS?

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• How to download data from SDA into SPSS?

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• How to download data from SDA into SPSS?

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Students Experiences with SDA

• Common questions
• How to download data from SDA into SPSS?

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Advantages for teaching

• Stable environment, 24x7 access
• No need for special labs or statistical software
• Reduces time spent teaching statistical software
• Students get hands on data quickly
• Switch easily between weighted and unweighted
  distributions
• Measures of association and tests of significance
  comparable to SAS
• Interactive demonstration of statistical concepts
• We can quickly mount additional data to fulfill
  your teaching needs

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Advantages for research

• Stable environment, 24x7 access
• Latest available version of the data
• Integrated variable descriptions (selected data
  files)
• Basic exploratory data analysis eg are there
  enough cases for my subset?
• Will calculate design effects, if cluster etc
  variables are present and defined
• Share recoded variables with other researchers
• Download data to SAS, SPSS, Stata on your
  workstation

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Disadvantages of SDA

• Cant search for variables/values within/between
  data files
• Cant download created/recoded variables
• No random sampling function
• Graphics minimal, eg no stem-and-leaf , box-plots
  etc
• Can only output to Word/Excel from IE, not from
  Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox
• Doesnt output SAS/SPSS/Stata system/export files
• Wont output elements of a citation format
• Standard tests of significance etc only, doesnt
  eg calculate post-hoc tests
• Does nothing intelligent with eg BRR, bootstrap
  or jackknife weights

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Functions we know to be coming in SDA

• Within and between file variable searching
• Will allow users to load own data files

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Questions

• Question 1 Where will I find the SDA server at
  University of Toronto?
• Answer 1 The URL is
• http//www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/major/sda.htm

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Questions (contd)

• Question 2
• How are files chosen to be mounted on the SDA
  server?

• Answer 2
• All significant Canadian microdata files, eg by
  Statistics Canada as released by DLI
• Other files based on faculty/student requests

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Questions (contd)

• Question 3
• My research is being done collaboratively with a
  colleague at another Canadian university. Can my
  colleague get access to SDA?

• Answer 3
• SDA is available as a subscription service to
  other Canadian universities and colleges. Current
  subscribers are U of Calgary, Ryerson, and U of
  Victoria