Transcript UKDS beginners guide RMF 2014 DJM sc

What is the UK Data Service?
A beginner’s guide
David Martin
Deputy Director
ESRC Research Methods Festival
St Catherine’s College, Oxford
9 July 2014
Overview
• welcome and introduction
• a brief introduction to the UK Data Service
• an infrastructure for social science data access
• range of services and data
• innovations and developments
• brief overview of rest of this session – three “sample”
data collections
UK Data Service
• ESRC has invested substantially in social science
datasets, seen as an “infrastructure” for social science
• previous investments included ESRC’s Census
Programme, Economic and Social Data Service
(ESDS) and Secure Data Service (SDS)
• in summer 2012, all combined into a new integrated UK
Data Service
• overarching aim: to provide users with seamless and
flexible access to data resources to facilitate highquality social and economic research
UK Data Service
• place of deposit for data arising from ESRC-funded
research
• an obligation for award holders to offer data for access by
other researchers
• includes ReShare self-deposit facility
• Census Support provides access to UK census datasets
• major collections of UK and international survey
datasets
• Secure Lab for sensitive data access
• training, support and guidance
• free to users
• different access conditions apply to different datasets, from
source
Innovations and developments…
• Ongoing data acquisitions
• Continuous working with national statistical
organisations and other key data providers on
behalf of the social science research community
• Innovation projects – enhancing the service
• Data enhancement projects such as Enhancing and
Enriching Historic Census Microdata
• Integration with ESRC’s new “big data” initiatives
such as business and local government data
research centres
Questions
David Martin
[email protected]