UKDA history and overview

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UKDA history and overview

• Data Archive established in 1968 (as Data Bank)
• funded by (then) SSRC to provide a service to UK
  HE sector
• initial focus on academic surveys then government
  survey data
• new distributed service established 1 January
  2003 as the Economic and Social Data Service
  (ESDS)
• still predominately funded to provide service for
  higher and further education for research
  teaching and learning

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The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS)

• Louise CortiEconomic and Social Data ServiceUK
  Data ArchiveMaidstone 20 March 2007

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UKDA history and overview

• supported by
• ESRC, JISC, University of Essex
• Project funding (EC, ESRC, JISC, MRC, AHRC, etc.)
• secure funding until 2012
• since 2005 designated as Place of Deposit by
  The National Archives (TNA)
• employs c. 65 staff
• new building after 40 years!...

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Types of data

• acquires mixed data types and formats
• quantitative and qualitative
• surveys
• censuses
• administrative data
• images
• sound
• video
• mixed media
• specialist Qualidata unit, Census unit, and
  History Data Service

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Who produces the social science data held by UKDA?

• government agencies
• academic sector
• private sector
• local Government
• Research Council funded
• ESRC, MRC, NERC, AHRB, Wellcome, Leverhulme
• increasing tendency for government agencies to
  contract out survey work to private sector
  (NatCen)
• increasing number of large digitisation projects
• JISC, NOF
• access to international data via links with other
  data archives worldwide

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Facts and figures

• 4,000 datasets in the collection
• 350 new datasets and editions added each year
• 30,000 registered users
• 15,000 datasets distributed worldwide p.a.
• 100,000 online sessions p.a.
• 15,000,000 web hits p.a.

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ESDS 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

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Specialist data services

• ESDS Government
• ESDS International
• ESDS Longitudinal
• ESDS Qualidata
• Greater emphasis on
• value-added data and documentation
• enhanced resource discovery
• improved delivery services
• support and training for the secondary use of
  data for research, learning and teaching
• outreach and promotion

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Core Service

• run by UKDA
• overall integration and management of ESDS
• acquiring, processing, preserving and
  disseminating data
• data creation and deposit support
• central registration service operating across the
  ESDS
• central 'first stop' help desk service
• front line user support
• cataloguing and describing data
• maintaining and developing web presence
• publicity and training

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Data In

• Data acquisition
• offers and proactive scoping
• data evaluation via committee
• Data ingest
• checking, verifying
• converting, formatting, processing
• documenting and contextualising
• Data preservation
• long-term data management
• Preservation Policy

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Working with data creators

• up-to-date streamlined ESDS website on data
  creation issues
• bringing together advice for quantitative and
  qualitative data creators
• dedicated advisory service
• training days/workshops for data creators
• ESRC Research Programmes
• circulating information early on
• offering individual project help
• attend Programme meetings where possible

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Accessing data

• Web access to data and metadata
• Easy to navigate format
• Web catalogue with variable level searching
• Subject browsing - eg major series and geo web
  pages
• Access to online doc - pdf user guides and forms
• Data are freely available for the majority of
  users
• Registration using Athens including agreement to
  an End User Licence, fine-grained access control
• Data supplied in a variety of formats
• statistical package formats (e.g. SPSS)
• databases and spreadsheets
• word-processed documents and XML files
• PDF documents
• Online exploration

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End User Licence

• Use of the data is governed by a legally-binding
  EUL which forms part of the registration process.
  Each individual who requires access to data has
  to register and will need an Athens login. Users
  outside UK higher or further education who have
  no way of obtaining an Athens login can apply to
  the UKDA.
• Under the terms of the EUL, users agree
• not to use the data for any commercial purpose
  (except with prior permission/under an
  appropriate commercial licence agreement)
• to preserve the confidentiality of, and not
  attempt to identify, individuals, households or
  organisations in the data
• to use the recommended methods of citation and
  acknowledgement in publications
• to supply the bibliographic details of any
  published work based on the data collections
• to ensure that the means of access to the data
  (such as passwords) are kept secure and not
  disclosed to anyone else
• to abide by any further special conditions

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Online exploration

• Online data browsing, including
• simple data analysis, visualisation, downloading
  and subsetting via Nesstar
• ESDS Government Vital Statistics online
• International macro data via Beyond 20/20 and
  visualisation interface
• ESDS Qualidata Online interview transcripts
• Census data

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Government data

• 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

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ESDS Longitudinal Data

• five 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)
• English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
• possible forthcoming Medical Research Council
  population study datasets
• 1946 Birth Cohort
• ALSPAC

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ESDS International 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
• access for UK HE/FE only
• access to micro data surveys
• Eurobarometers
• International Social Survey Programme
• other social data via other national data archives

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ESDS Qualidata

• access and support for a range of qualitative
  datasets, hosted by the UK Data Archive
• 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

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Types 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
• multimedia audio, video, photos and text (most
  common is interview transcriptions)
• formats digital, paper, analogue audio-visual
• data structures - differ across different
  document types

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Classic study 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

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Online access to data
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Secondary analysis potential

• descriptive material
• comparative research, restudy or follow-up study
• re-analysis/secondary analysis
• research design and methodological advancement
• replication of published statistics
• teaching and learning

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Help for users

• Help desk and dedicated data pages, FAQs
• Discussion lists
• programme of training courses and publicity
  events
• news bulletins and articles
• resources (links to other sites)
• teaching datasets and/or exemplars
• enhanced documentation e.g.
• dataset, thematic, methodological and software
  guides
• variables consistent over time on specific
  surveys (ESDS Government)
• Online data deposit forms

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Using ESDS data for teaching

• tutor registers with ESDS and downloads data
• registers a usage (for micro data)
• tutor makes data available to students (if online
  only via secure network)
• tutor asks students to register or sign access
  agreement for teaching (not always necessary, but
  to be encouraged

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Collaboration - UK

• Government agencies work closely
• Research Councils on formal data sharing policies
• Research Centres and Programmes collecting data
• Other funding agencies eg JISC on technical
  issues
• authentication, digitisation
• TNA on records management and preservation
  practise
• E-science on grid enabled data issues, ontologies
• Research Methods centres on data quality and
  secondary analysis

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• Contact
• www.esds.ac.uk
• help_at_esds.ac.uk
• ESDS FAQ www.esds.ac.uk/about/faq.asp
• corti_at_essex.ac.uk
• 01206 872145