ONS has recently published a short information note on their progress and intentions regarding the future of the General Lifestyle Survey. The note, called Update to the future of the GLF survey outlines the intention to change the way the General Lifestyle Survey data are collected, seeks to identify the current uses of the survey data, any implications of stopping the survey, and options for alternative information sources.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/consultations/closed-consultations/2011/the-future-of-the-glf-survey/index.html
Monday, 31 October 2011
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Track Changes in ORBIS
Bureau van Dijk provides a website detailing all the changes to the ID variable in the ORBIS database. http://idchanges.bvdinfo.com
Booking now open for ESDS International 7th Annual Conference 2011
ESDS International is holding this year's annual conference on Monday 28 November 2011 at the Institute of Materials in London.
Booking now open (http://www.esds.ac.uk/news/esdsEventManagement.asp?id=2904).
Programme (http://www.esds.ac.uk/international/news/conf2011.asp).
The theme of the conference is Understanding the World: Evidence and Impact, and the event will be an opportunity for users and providers of international data to meet and share their ideas on issues relating to international data research.
This half day event will include a presentation by Gareth McGuinness from the International Monetary Fund on 'Understanding the world economy using Principal Global Indicators and other international data', Toby Green from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development will tell 'The story behind the OECD's Your Better Life Index' and we will also hear NatCen speaking about the 'European Social Survey'.
The programme also includes two 'Meet the Researcher' sessions:
• The poster presentation session is an opportunity for researchers using international data to introduce their work on topics such as 'Are Oil Revenue Funds effective in oil rich countries?', 'The curse of tourism?', 'Openness, Economic Growth, and Human Development: Evidence from South Asia' and 'Impact of Green Energy Policies on Electricity Market: An Econometric Analysis'.
• The second session includes talks on the following subjects - 'The Yield Curve as a Predictor of Economic Performance in Asia', 'The Effects of Economic Reforms on Manufacturing Dualism: Evidence from India', 'Electricity Co-operation and Decarbonisation: The Role of Import and Export in CO2 Reduction' and 'A Comparison of the EU-15 Countries Based on the Stiglitz Report’s Recommendations'
This event is intended to appeal to policy makers, members of the academic community using the international databanks in their research and teaching, data librarians and producers of international data resources. The event is free and open to all but capacity is limited, so booking is essential.
Booking now open (http://www.esds.ac.uk/news/esdsEventManagement.asp?id=2904).
Programme (http://www.esds.ac.uk/international/news/conf2011.asp).
The theme of the conference is Understanding the World: Evidence and Impact, and the event will be an opportunity for users and providers of international data to meet and share their ideas on issues relating to international data research.
This half day event will include a presentation by Gareth McGuinness from the International Monetary Fund on 'Understanding the world economy using Principal Global Indicators and other international data', Toby Green from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development will tell 'The story behind the OECD's Your Better Life Index' and we will also hear NatCen speaking about the 'European Social Survey'.
The programme also includes two 'Meet the Researcher' sessions:
• The poster presentation session is an opportunity for researchers using international data to introduce their work on topics such as 'Are Oil Revenue Funds effective in oil rich countries?', 'The curse of tourism?', 'Openness, Economic Growth, and Human Development: Evidence from South Asia' and 'Impact of Green Energy Policies on Electricity Market: An Econometric Analysis'.
• The second session includes talks on the following subjects - 'The Yield Curve as a Predictor of Economic Performance in Asia', 'The Effects of Economic Reforms on Manufacturing Dualism: Evidence from India', 'Electricity Co-operation and Decarbonisation: The Role of Import and Export in CO2 Reduction' and 'A Comparison of the EU-15 Countries Based on the Stiglitz Report’s Recommendations'
This event is intended to appeal to policy makers, members of the academic community using the international databanks in their research and teaching, data librarians and producers of international data resources. The event is free and open to all but capacity is limited, so booking is essential.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
On-line training in Research Data Management
The Research Data Management Training, or MANTRA project has produced an open, online training course to help disseminate good practice in research data management at the University of Edinburgh and beyond.
What is it?
It is a non-credit, free online course which provides guidelines for good practice in research data management. It consists of interactive online units focused on key concepts of data management. They include video clips featuring senior academics talking about data management challenges. In addition there are practical exercises in handling data within four software analysis environments (SPSS, NVivo, R and ArcGIS), which learners can download and work through at their own pace.
Who is it for?
It is for PhD students, early career researchers, and all others who are planning a research project based on digital data. The course is an Open Educational Resource that may be freely used by anyone. It is available through an open license for rejigging, rebranding, and repurposing.
Who produced it?
The Data Library team at EDINA produced the materials over the course of the past year as part of the JISC Managing Research Data programme. They worked with the School of Social and Political Studies, the School of GeoSciences and the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology to target the resources towards their doctoral training programmes. The Data Library at the University of Edinburgh has been providing research data services to staff and students for over twenty-five years. The data handling software practicals were written by expert data analysts in each software domain. The online module was created using Xerte Online Toolkits, an open source authoring tool.
For more information, see the course website: http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra
What is it?
It is a non-credit, free online course which provides guidelines for good practice in research data management. It consists of interactive online units focused on key concepts of data management. They include video clips featuring senior academics talking about data management challenges. In addition there are practical exercises in handling data within four software analysis environments (SPSS, NVivo, R and ArcGIS), which learners can download and work through at their own pace.
Who is it for?
It is for PhD students, early career researchers, and all others who are planning a research project based on digital data. The course is an Open Educational Resource that may be freely used by anyone. It is available through an open license for rejigging, rebranding, and repurposing.
Who produced it?
The Data Library team at EDINA produced the materials over the course of the past year as part of the JISC Managing Research Data programme. They worked with the School of Social and Political Studies, the School of GeoSciences and the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology to target the resources towards their doctoral training programmes. The Data Library at the University of Edinburgh has been providing research data services to staff and students for over twenty-five years. The data handling software practicals were written by expert data analysts in each software domain. The online module was created using Xerte Online Toolkits, an open source authoring tool.
For more information, see the course website: http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra
Introduction to BHPS using Stata
Date: 28th-29th November
Venue: Social Science Research Centre at the University of Essex campus, Colchester
This course is aimed at new users of the BHPS or those who have so far made use only of simpler aspects of the data. The underlying structure of the BHPS is complex, with various different data about individuals and the households in which they live across time. The BHPS team has tried to make this structure as transparent as possible through the way data is organised. However, even the number of different data sets can appear daunting. This course aims to guide the user through these apparent complexities, and ensure that they can effectively make use of as much of the data as they require for their own research projects.
The main focus is on the data reorganisation techniques required for different types of cross-sectional and longitudinal research, rather than the statistical techniques themselves, but it is informed by the ways in which data require to be organised for different statistical techniques.
Participants will learn about the way the BHPS is designed, which data are collected, how they are collected and how the data are structured and stored. By the end of the two day course, the participant will have a thorough knowledge of the BHPS, from survey design to data-set structure, and will have the tools to make the most of a rich, but complex, data set.
A basic working knowledge of Stata is assumed. For more information and to see course prerequisites please go to the website http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps/courses/stata-intro
Venue: Social Science Research Centre at the University of Essex campus, Colchester
This course is aimed at new users of the BHPS or those who have so far made use only of simpler aspects of the data. The underlying structure of the BHPS is complex, with various different data about individuals and the households in which they live across time. The BHPS team has tried to make this structure as transparent as possible through the way data is organised. However, even the number of different data sets can appear daunting. This course aims to guide the user through these apparent complexities, and ensure that they can effectively make use of as much of the data as they require for their own research projects.
The main focus is on the data reorganisation techniques required for different types of cross-sectional and longitudinal research, rather than the statistical techniques themselves, but it is informed by the ways in which data require to be organised for different statistical techniques.
Participants will learn about the way the BHPS is designed, which data are collected, how they are collected and how the data are structured and stored. By the end of the two day course, the participant will have a thorough knowledge of the BHPS, from survey design to data-set structure, and will have the tools to make the most of a rich, but complex, data set.
A basic working knowledge of Stata is assumed. For more information and to see course prerequisites please go to the website http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps/courses/stata-intro
Introduction to Understanding Society – the UK Household Longitudinal Study
Date & time: November 29, 2011 13:00
Venue: Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.
To register to attend this lunchtime seminar, or for more details, please email Victoria Nolan vlnolan@essex.ac.uk. The seminar will be held in the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) seminar room (on the ground floor) – it is free of charge and a buffet lunch will be available from 13:00.
This lunchtime seminar will provide an essential overview of the Understanding Society survey and its content, data access, data structure and documentation. It will be of interest to anyone who is planning to access and use the new Understanding Society data for their research.
This seminar provides a fantastic opportunity to get to know the survey and the possibilities for research based on the Understanding Society data. It will be presented by Gundi Knies, a Senior Research Officer at ISER who has been closely involved with the Understanding Society project from the outset. This seminar is an opportunity not to be missed, to be one of the first to gain a detailed picture of the enormous research potential of this new dataset.
Understanding Society now includes the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) sample, thus extending the analysis and research possibilities. Understanding Society greatly improves the range of longitudinal analyses that can be carried out given its larger sample size and its in-built design features such as data linkages and inclusion of an ethnic minority boost sample. For researchers using the BHPS, there is an Introduction to BHPS using Stata course being held at the University of Essex on 28th and 29th November.
Venue: Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.
To register to attend this lunchtime seminar, or for more details, please email Victoria Nolan vlnolan@essex.ac.uk. The seminar will be held in the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) seminar room (on the ground floor) – it is free of charge and a buffet lunch will be available from 13:00.
This lunchtime seminar will provide an essential overview of the Understanding Society survey and its content, data access, data structure and documentation. It will be of interest to anyone who is planning to access and use the new Understanding Society data for their research.
This seminar provides a fantastic opportunity to get to know the survey and the possibilities for research based on the Understanding Society data. It will be presented by Gundi Knies, a Senior Research Officer at ISER who has been closely involved with the Understanding Society project from the outset. This seminar is an opportunity not to be missed, to be one of the first to gain a detailed picture of the enormous research potential of this new dataset.
Understanding Society now includes the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) sample, thus extending the analysis and research possibilities. Understanding Society greatly improves the range of longitudinal analyses that can be carried out given its larger sample size and its in-built design features such as data linkages and inclusion of an ethnic minority boost sample. For researchers using the BHPS, there is an Introduction to BHPS using Stata course being held at the University of Essex on 28th and 29th November.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Call for Proposals - Kauffman Firm Survey Data Extension - Data Matching
Deadline January 15, 2012
As the Kauffman Foundation nears the completion of its eight-year panel study on new firms in the United States, the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) www.kauffman.org/kfs, they are seeking interested scholars who would like to extend the core survey data in ways that do not increase the burden on survey respondents. While more than 6,000 variables are included in the confidential version of the KFS microdata, the Foundation recognizes that there are additional opportunities for research that become available by incorporating new sources of data to leverage the existing KFS survey information. Through this grant program we hope to accomplish the following:
* Expand the community of experts involved with the KFS to include scholars with expertise in natural language processing, web scraping, and related approaches;
* Create reusable infrastructure; and
* Use the prototype/demo infrastructure to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach-missingness, accuracy, utility-to expand our understanding of different approaches for matching to existing data sets.
Multiple projects are likely to be funded with individual project budgets up to $50,000 being preferred.
Full details available at www.kauffman.org/KFSProposals.
As the Kauffman Foundation nears the completion of its eight-year panel study on new firms in the United States, the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) www.kauffman.org/kfs, they are seeking interested scholars who would like to extend the core survey data in ways that do not increase the burden on survey respondents. While more than 6,000 variables are included in the confidential version of the KFS microdata, the Foundation recognizes that there are additional opportunities for research that become available by incorporating new sources of data to leverage the existing KFS survey information. Through this grant program we hope to accomplish the following:
* Expand the community of experts involved with the KFS to include scholars with expertise in natural language processing, web scraping, and related approaches;
* Create reusable infrastructure; and
* Use the prototype/demo infrastructure to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach-missingness, accuracy, utility-to expand our understanding of different approaches for matching to existing data sets.
Multiple projects are likely to be funded with individual project budgets up to $50,000 being preferred.
Full details available at www.kauffman.org/KFSProposals.
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