Transcript Fdfdf - University of Edinburgh

Introduction to the
University Data Library
and national data services
Stuart Macdonald
Graduate School of Social &
Political Science Induction
15 & 16 September, 2011
EDINA and Data Library within
Information Services
Divisions
 User Services
 Library and Collections
 IT Infrastructure
 Applications
 EDINA and Data Library
 Digital Curation Centre
What is a data library?
A data library refers to both the content and the services that foster
use of collections of numeric and/or geospatial data sets for
secondary use in research. A data library is normally part of a larger
institution (academic, corporate, scientific, medical, governmental,
etc.) established to serve the data users of that organisation.
The data library tends to house local data collections and provides
access to them through various means (CD-/DVD-ROMs or central
server for download). A data library may also maintain subscriptions
to licensed data resources for its users to access.
Data Library: History

Established out of the Program Library Unit in early
1980s to provide access to data on mainframes, e.g.
1981 population census data. Was part of EUCS, now
Information Services

Part of long tradition of sharing machine-readable data
for secondary analysis in the social sciences
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Became a national data centre as EDINA in 1993 - data
library continues University remit
 celebrated
25th anniversary in 2008
Data Library - http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-library
Data Library Services

Finding…
“I need to analyse some data for a project, but all I can find are published papers with
tables and graphs, not the original data source.”

Accessing …
“I’ve found the data I need, but I’m not sure how to gain access to it.”
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Using …
“I’ve got the data I need, but I’m not sure how to analyse it in my chosen software.”
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Managing …
“I have collected my own data and I’d like to document and preserve it and make it
available to others.”
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Reference Interviews
Data Library Resources

Large-scale social science survey data
Country and regional level time series data
Population and Agricultural Census data
Data for mapping
Resources for teaching

Opening hours: 9.30am – 5.30pm (Tues & Thurs)
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5 Buccleuch Place, 2nd floor
Tel.: 0131 651 1431 or 0131 651 1744
Email: [email protected]
Research Data Management
Services

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Guidance via suite of web pages
Research data management training:

JISC-Funded Research Data MANTRA project - http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/datalibrary-projects/mantra
 Open Educational Resources aimed at PhD students and early career
researchers
 Online RDM tutorials, data handling exercises, video interviews
 Content licensed using CC-attribution to allow re-use and re-purposing

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Institutional data repository provision
Assistance with deposit in national archives
Edinburgh DataShare - http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/
Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMeN) - http://aqmen.ac.uk/

The Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMeN) is led by a
team of academics from eight Universities in Scotland. It is a three
year project funded jointly by the ESRC and the Scottish Funding
Council (SFC) as part of the ESRC Quantitative Methods Initiative.

The main objective is to build capacity in the use of quantitative
methods amongst the social science community in Scotland and
beyond.

Data Library host and manage the AQMeN website

AQMeN provide access to: data analysis tools; software; teaching
resources; data resources, research skills, communication and
dissemination resources

Plus links to training & events and an online discussion forum
Introduction to National Data Services
UK Data Archive
Founded in 1967 and based at the University of Essex
ESRC / JISC-funded
Houses several thousand social science and humanities datasets
Provides resource discovery and support for secondary use of
quantitative and qualitative data in learning, teaching and research.
More recently it has worked with environmental and medical data
sources.
Services provided include:
• Economic and Social Data Service
• History Data Service
• UK Census portal
• Rural Economy and Land Use Programme Data Support Service
• Secure Data Service
• Survey Question Bank
• UKDA StatServe
UKDA - http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/
Economic and Social Data Service
The ESDS is a distributed service, based on a collaboration between four key
centres of expertise:
• UK Data Archive (UKDA), University of Essex
• Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) , University of Essex
• Manchester Information and Associated Services (MIMAS), University of
Manchester
• Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR), University of
Manchester
It provides an integrated service offering enhanced support for the secondary use of
qualitative and quantitative data across the research, learning and teaching communities
ESDS - http://www.esds.ac.uk/
ESDS features include:
Data – full/partial catalogue search, browse by subject, also links to major studies,
new releases
Support – finding data, online guides, learning and teaching resources,
online data analysis tools (NESSTAR), external statistical sources, FAQ
Resources – Online data browsing tools, DDI tools, qualitative tools
Advice for creating and depositing research data
- best practice for ESRC
researchers and beyond, preservation guidelines
News & Events – workshops, new data, publications (incl. good practice guides)
Interaction data involve flows of individuals in the UK between origins and
destinations. These flows are either the residential migrations of
individuals from one place of usual residence to another or of commuters
making journeys from home to workplace via CIDER
The Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs) are a
sample of individual person-level records drawn from
the 1991 and 2001 Census databases that have been
anonymised. Each file contains a broad range of sociodemographic characteristics for respondents.
Longitudinal studies are data sources that
contain observations of the same research
units over a period of time – e.g. ONS
Longitudinal Study of England and Wales,
Scottish Longitudinal Study – linking census
data to vital statistics via CELSIUS
Casweb - http://casweb.mimas.ac.uk
EDINA National Data Centre – http://edina.ac.uk
•
Mission statement: “..to enhance the productivity of research,
learning and teaching in UK higher and further education..”
•
Networked access to a range of online resources for UK FE and HE
•
Services free at the point of use for use by staff and students in
learning, teaching and research through institutional subscription
•
Focus is on service but also undertake R&D (projects  services)
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delivers about 20 online services
has about 10 major projects (including services in development)
employs about 80 staff (Edinburgh & St Helens)
UKBORDERS – http://edina.ac.uk/ukborders/
EDINA Digimap - http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/
Other non-academic UK data sources

National Records of Scotland (NRS) –
http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/
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Scottish Census Records On-line –
http://www.scrol.gov.uk/scrol/common/home.jsp
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Office for National Statistics (ONS) –
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/
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ONS Neighbourhood Statistics –
http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/
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Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS) –
http://www.sns.gov.uk/
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NISRA - http://www.nisra.gov.uk/
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Welsh Government Statistics - http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/?lang=en
Pics from Flickr (creative commons attribution) – credits
include: D Sharon Pruitt
Thank You
[email protected]
[email protected]
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