Finding and using secondary
data and resources for
research projects
Beate Lichtwardt
UK Data Service/ UK Data Archive
University of Essex
Module SC203, University of Essex
27 February 2014
Who
What
Why
Where
How … are we?
… do we offer?
… could that be
of interest to
you?
… to find data
and resources?
… to access
them?
Aims for today
Get an idea of where and how to:
• find data for secondary data analysis
• find help with data search, access and analysis
Why secondary data analysis?
Maybe you want your third-year project to:
• become a publication
• enhance your analytical and research skills using secondary data analysis (employability)
• simply be an interesting, enjoyable research project based on real, representative data without spending years of collecting and cleaning them yourself
You can save lots of time and get better quality data!
Some examples
To what extent is religion important to you?
Example from UN COMTRADE, 2008
French snail imports
0100020003000400050006000700080009000
Gre
ece
Rom
ania
Turkey
Pol
and
Bel
gium
Hun
gary
Cze
ch R
ep.
Indone
sia
Lithuan
ia
Bos
nia H
erze
govina
Cyp
rus
Bul
garia
Italy
Mad
agas
car
Syr
ia
Uni
ted K
ingdo
mTra
de
va
lue
, U
S$
th
ou
sa
nd
s
Graph: Celia Russell
GHS - Age started smoking (using Nesstar)
BSA - Pay gap
Each year the British Social Attitudes
series feeds data into International
Social Survey Programme allowing
international comparisons
ISSP – Pay gap
MCS - Parenting skills
BCS – Main cause of crime
Skills utilisation in British workplaces Skills used in job (2006) compared to 5 years ago
54.3%36.4%
9.0% 0.3%
Increased No change Decreased N/A
How learned increased skills Men Women All
My supervisor taught me on-the-job 28.6 36.3 32.5
I learned by watching others at work 24.2 22.1 23.1
I learned at work through trial and error 11.5 12.4 13.5
I did one or more courses of training or education 15.9 11.2 12.2
I learned by being helped by colleagues at work 11.7 12.7 12.0
I learned with the aid of manuals, books, videos or on-line
materials 2.4 1.1
1.7
I learned extra skills through leisure activities 0.1 0.0 0.0
I already had extra skills, but now they are more fully utilised 4.4 3.0 3.7
Other 1.9 1.1 1.2
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Data source:
2006 Skills survey
(SN 6004)
Finding and
accessing data
Where to look for relevant data?
First point of reference:
Data Catalogue (Discover) discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/
• If requested data are available from other than our
data catalogue, the User Support team will acquire
data on your behalf:
from the depositor
from other archives
How to search for data?
discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/
Variable and question search
discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/variables
An overview of the
UK Data Service
UK Data Service
ukdataservice.ac.uk
Integrates ESDS, Survey
Question Bank and
Census.ac.uk
What is the UK Data Service?
• a comprehensive resource funded
by the ESRC
• a single point of access to a wide
range of secondary social science
data
• support, training and guidance
• listen to the recorded webinars at ukdataservice.ac.uk/news-and-
events/newsitem/?id=3494
Who is it for?
• academic researchers and students
• government analysts
• charities and foundations
• business consultants
• independent research centres
• think tanks
What does the UK Data Service do?
• put together a collection of the most valuable data
and enhance that over time
• preserve data in the long term for future research
purposes
• make the data and documentation available for
reuse
• provide data management advice for data creators
• provide support for users of the service
• information about how data are used
• easy access through a website:
ukdataservice.ac.uk
What do users do with the data ?
• Comparative research, restudy or follow-up study
• Re-analysis/secondary analysis
• Research design and methodological advancement
• Replication of published statistics
• Teaching and learning
Some statistics
Holdings: data for research and teaching purposes, used in
all sectors and for many different disciplines
• 6,000 datasets in the collection
• 400 new datasets and new editions
added within last 12 months
• 25,000 registered users
• 60,000 downloads worldwide per annum
4000+ user support queries per annum
Overview service
Kinds of data:
UK Surveys International Longitudinal
Large-scale
government
funded
surveys
Census Business
Major UK
surveys
following
individuals
over time
Multi-nation
aggregate
databanks
and survey
data
Range of
multimedia
qualitative
data sources
Census data
1971 – 2011
Microdata
Qualitative
Key data
Overview of the Service
Quantitative data
microdata are the coded numerical responses to surveys with a
separate
record for each individual respondent
macrodata are aggregate figures, for example country-level
economic indicators
data formats include SPSS, Stata and tab-delimited formats
Qualitative data
data include in-depth interviews, diaries, anthropological field notes
and
the complete answers to survey questions
data formats include Excel, Word and RTF
Multimedia
a small number of datasets may include image files such as
photographs or audio files
Non-digital material
paper media could include photographs, reports, questionnaires and
transcriptions, analogue audio or audio-visual recordings
Data sources
• official agencies - mainly central government
• international statistical time series
• individual academics - research grants
• market research agencies
• public records/historical sources
• access to international data via links with other data
archives worldwide
Links with other data archives worldwide
CESSDA -
Consortium
of European
Social
Science Data
Archives
Non-
European:
ICPSR,
ASSDA
How to access data
Data access
• web access to data and metadata
• data are freely available for use in higher education institutions
• data supplied in a variety of formats - statistical package formats (e.g. SPSS, Stata)
- databases and spreadsheets
- word processed documents, PDF documents etc.
Accessing data – step by step
• register with us via UK Federation using your university username
and password
• agree to an End User Licence (EUL)
• select the desired data from the Data Catalogue by clicking on the
‘Download/Order’ button
• specify a project for which the data is to be used (minimum: 30-word
description)
• then:
- download the data to local machine selecting your preferred
format (SPSS, Stata, TAB etc.)
or
- place an order for the data (SC, if no online
agreement; SL) and complete all relevant forms
Online analysis using Nesstar
• browse detailed information (metadata) and data online
• do simple data analysis and visualisation on microdata
• bookmark analysis
• download the appropriate subset of data in one of a number of formats (e.g. SPSS, Excel)
Nesstar catalogue
Source: nesstar.ukdataservice.ac.uk/webview
Nesstar - help links
• Nesstar website: www.nesstar.com/
• Demo video Nesstar: ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/themes/ageing/analysing.aspx
• Thematic videos using NESSTAR: www.esds.ac.uk/themes/health/nesstarsmoking.asp ;
www.esds.ac.uk/themes/housing/nesstarhousing.asp ;
www.esds.ac.uk/themes/crime/nesstarcrime.asp ;
www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/video/weights/weights.html
Contact
• Webpage for these slides: ukdataservice.ac.uk/news-and-events/eventsitem/?id=3733
• Helpdesk:
ukdataservice.ac.uk/help/get-in-touch
Tel: 01206 872143
UK Data Service – Subscription emails,
facebook, twitter and youtube
• To subscribe to UK Data Service emails: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=UKDATASERVICE
• To follow UK Data Service on Twitter: @UKDataService
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/UKDATASERVICE
Demo
• Available data
• Finding/accessing data
• Online analysis
• User support/resources
Demo - Time series (Nesstar)
Demo – Mapping (Nesstar)
Dataset: Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, 2013
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