The European Values Study and its metadata: stock taking and the future

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The European Values Study and its metadata stock
taking and the future

• Ruud Luijkx
• Tilburg University
• The Netherlands

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European Values Study

• A longitudinal and international comparative
  survey research project on basic human values
• www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu

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Short history

• First wave 1981
• European Countries France, Great Britain, West
  Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium,
  Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Northern Ireland,
  Ireland, Iceland
• Non-European Countries Canada, USA

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Original Research Questions

• Do Europeans share common values?
• Are values changing?
• Do Christian values continue to permeate European
  life and culture?
• Is a coherent alternative meaning system
  replacing that of Christianity?
• What are the implications for European unity?

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EVS questionnaire subjects

• religion
• morality
• politics
• society
• family marriage

• sexuality
• education
• work
• leisure time

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Second/Third wave 1990/199

• Modified replication of 1981
• More countries from Western and Eastern Europe
• In 1999 also new issues
• solidarity
• social capital
• democracy
• work ethics

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Fourth wave 2008

• Largely a replication of 1999
• All countries of Europe (with more than 100,000
  inhabitants)
• Progress of the fieldwork
• More emphasis on high quality socio-demographic
  (background) variables
• High quality translation of the questionnaires

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Our colleagues the World Values Survey

• third wave (1995-1998)
• fourth wave (2000-2004)
• fifth wave(2005-2007)
• Overlap in the questionnaire is about 60

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Data dissemmination

• Through data archives
• GESIS is the primary data archive for EVS
• 1981 originally at UKDA
• 1990 at DANS
• For/in 1981/1990 only data and questionnaires
  (later in pdf-format)

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(Meta) data 1999

• GESIS Codebook explorer
• GESIS ZACAT
• Study description
• Bibliographic citation
• Study scope
• Methodology and processing
• Data-access
• Data Files Description

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(Meta) data 1999GESIS ZACAT

• Comparative questions (master questionnaire) with
  1981 and 1990
• Original question wordings for all languages
  question texts, answer categories, and show cards
  of the questionnaires
• Explanatory notes concerning differences between
  national and master questionnaire, difficulties
  arising from translation, and additional
  questions used in the national questionnaires
  were added.
• http//zacat.gesis.org/webview/index.jsp

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Harmonising different waves

• In 2006 a harmonised data set was released after
  (post hoc) harmonisation of all Value Surveys
  since 1981 (ASEP/JDS, EVS-Tilburg, GESIS)
• Goals
• Make all Value Surveys available on line
• Facilitate simple analyses
• Disseminate all documentation
• Web sites where data are available
• EVS www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu
• ASEP/JDS www.jdsurvey.net
• WVS (Enter from WVS )
• ALSO HARMONISING META DATA

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Meta data 2008

• Improved presentation on ZACAT
• Including more notes from the translation process
• DatapluS Repositories for Enhanced Survey
  Publications

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DatapluS

• Funded by Surf Foundation
• Create 2 subject repositories with enriched
  publications
• Besides European Values Study (EVS), also Dutch
  Parliamentary Election Study
• Enriched with
• Syntax codes of constructs, concepts
• Links to (meta) data (at the variable
  level)persistent identifier issue

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Work Packages

• 1,2 INPUT Enhanced Publications (EVS, DPES)
• 3 A Sustainable Library Infrastructure for
  Enhanced Publications LIS (Tilburg University)
  Library Twente (presentation Thomas Place)
• 4 DDI 3.0 Enhanced Publication Editor
  CentERdata (Tilburg University) presentation
  Bart van Nieuwburg
• 5 Linking to (Meta) Data Stored in Data Archives
  (GESIS, DANS)

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Deliverables

• 2 subject repositories with enriched publications
• Enhanced Publication Editor
• Infrastructure compatible with existing
  repository systems

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Future issues

• Make more meta data available in a more
  coordinated way
• Use version control of (meta)dataalso cross
  linking data releases
• Further integration of publications and data
• Integration of data from different sources (macro
  indicators)