ESDS Government Resources for Government Crime Surveys

ESDS Government Centre for Census and Survey Research

University of Manchester

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

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

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

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

Variable search • Variable search based on

the names and labels of variables

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

Outreach events

Introductory workshops Joint workshops with other ESDS servicesMethods workshopsResearch conferencesDataset user meetingsOther presentationsPosters

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 can’t find it

• Help desk involves collaboration with UKDA, HO, ONS, NatCen etc

Keeping in touch

• Biannual newsletter

• Join our email list for newsesds-govsurveys@jiscmail.ac.uk

• Home page contains news– Our news– New data

And in ESDS as a whole...

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

Friends of ours...

http://surveynet.ac.ukhttp://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/survey-

resources-network.html

Survey pages

Guiding new users through...

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

Variable search • Variable search based on

the names and labels of variables

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

Teaching datasets

• Cut-down data for teaching• 2000 data – core sample• Excludes boosts• Includes weights for individual

and household analysis • 55 variables • User guide