Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Bring Data to the Classroom Webinar Series – Using Data for Instruction

Bringing data into the classroom early (undergraduate) and often in support of quantitative literacy and just plain fun is the goal of these sessions.  ICPSR hosts a wide variety ofResources for Instructors as well as several data tools that can be used to get students interested in data and data analysis without the intimidation factor. Part of the 2014 Data Fair, webinars in this series (with registration links) include the following:
 
Data, Data Everywhere and Not a Number to Teach!
Broadcast time (EDT): Thursday, October 9,  Noon (12:00pm)
Sifting through the many megabytes of data with which we are bombarded each day takes practice. This webinar will focus on teaching students how to evaluate the data with which they come in contact (think Joel Best’s books…). We will also present a variety of sources for “numbers” that can be used in teaching and examples of their use. Because working with numerical evidence is as much or more a mindset as it is a set of mathematical skills, the content should be especially helpful for faculty who might otherwise consider themselves “non-quantitative.”
 
Making Research Methods Fun (or at Least Tolerable)
Broadcast time (EDT): Thursday, October 9,  2:00pm
Can “social research” and “fun” really go together? We all know the value of social research and why learning methods is important, but students are typically not as easily convinced. Learn how to use ICPSR’s collection of data and tools to make your research methods course more engaging. We will demonstrate how a variety of concepts – including some of the less exciting ones like operationalization and sampling – can be taught using real data and/or the tools built to support those data. 
 
About The ICPSR Data Fair
ICPSR is pleased to present its program for the 2014 ICPSR Data Fair, which will take placeMonday through Thursday, October 6-9, 2014.
·         The full program is found here: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/content/membership/datafair/index.html
·         Webinar broadcast times are listed in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
·         Webinars are free and open to the public, and it is permissible (even encouraged!) for organizations to broadcast these webcasts to groups of attendees.
·         Attendees must register for each webinar they want to attend.
·         Recordings and slide decks (when available) will be placed on ICPSR’s YouTube Channel. Look for the playlist titled, “2014 Data Fair.”

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

ICPSR's thematic data collections

ICPSR has an amazing variety of data. Join in these webinars to learn more!

ICPSR hosts over 20 data collections funded by government agencies and various foundations. Using these funds, the carefully curated data are free to the public. Please join ICPSR as it highlights a number of these collections as part of its 2014 Data Fair. Webinars in this series (with registration links) include the following:
An Introduction to NADAC - ICPSR's National Archive of Data on Arts and Culture
Broadcast time (EDT): Monday, October 6, 1:00pm
NADAC's mission is to share research data on arts and culture with researchers, policymakers, people working for arts and culture organizations, and the general public. This session, led by staff managing NADAC, will help attendees to learn about data available from NADAC at the national, state, and local levels. The session will also highlight user-friendly tools for analyzing the data (including for those not experienced with statistical packages), for visualizing the data, and for other ways of using research data to support the arts and culture community.
 
NAHDAP Orientation - ICPSR's National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program
Broadcast time (EDT): Tuesday, October 7, 2:00pm
NAHDAP facilitates research on drug addiction and HIV infection by acquiring and sharing data, particularly those funded by its sponsor, the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This session, led by members of ICPSR's National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program team, will help attendees learn about NAHDAP's services and resources for data depositors and data users. Further, they will orient you and help you locate this information on the NAHDAP website, highlighting selected datasets and data series.
 
Q&A with MET Staff
Broadcast time (EDT): Wednesday, October 8, 2:00pm
The Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database (MET LDB) has been available to the research community for almost a year now, and we invite current and potential users to log in for a review of the project and available data, and then stick around for Q&A with the ICPSR staff who manage data file processing and access for secondary analysis. This is a great opportunity to get your questions answered about this complex dataset, specifically questions on file organization and structure, as well as data access policies and procedures.
 
Out of the Gate(S): Post-Secondary Trajectories and Outcomes of Millennium and Washington Achiever Scholars
Broadcast time (EDT): Thursday, October 9,  3:00pm
The Washington State Achievers Scholarship program (WSA) started as part of an initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fund and support 16 high schools in Washington State as they redesigned their schools in order to increase academic achievement for all of their students. In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students.
In 2012, ICPSR’s Resource Center for Minority Data ( RCMD) and the Gates Foundation entered into an agreement to make data collected through the two scholarships freely available to the public through ICPSR. This session will provide some methodological and content background on these data and ways to access and analyze these data.
 
Broadening Access to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data with the Restricted-Use Data Analysis System (R-DAS)
Broadcast time (EDT): Tuesday, October 7, Noon (12:00pm)
Learning objectives
1.       Obtain a general understanding of the data and resources available through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA)
2.       Understand the differences between the public-use and restricted-use National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data files
3.       Locate and access restricted-use NSDUH data in the R-DAS
4.       Successfully complete a cross-tabulation in the R-DAS

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

It's fair season, so time for a Data Fair!

The 2014 ICPSR Data Fair is open for registration!
ICPSR – Powering Sustainable Data Access
The call for public sharing/public access to scientific research data continues to grow. Initially there seemed to be little recognition of the need to finance public access to research data, but fortunately funding-sustained public access is making its way into the conversation.
For many years, ICPSR has hosted several public-access research data archives that are sustained by federal and foundation funding. ICPSR’s 2014 Data Fair will feature webinars about many of these archives and collections, including an introduction to the National Archive of Data on Arts and Culture; the R-DAS collection at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive; two Gates Foundation-funded collections at the Resource Center for Minority Data; an orientation to the National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program; and a Q & A about the Gates Foundation-funded Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database. 
You will find descriptions of these webinars in the Data Fair program. Other offerings will include a presentation about ICPSR’s current efforts to fund and achieve sustainable public-access data sharing models, including its newly launched collection known as openICPSR.
Also of note, ICPSR will launch the Data Fair with an orientation webinar focused on our membership archive – composed of a data collection and related teaching resources that have been sustained successfully for over 52 years.Membership matters, and this webinar titled, “Understanding ICPSR,” will provide members – and those exploring membership – with in-depth tours of ICPSR’s research data services education resources, and the benefits of membership.
We invite you to join us for one or all fourteen webinars airing October 6-9, 2014!
Note: All data fair webinars are free and open to the public.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

New data from IPUMS-International

IPUMS-International Releases 20 New Samples

IPUMS-International has added 20 new samples and records for 560,359,538 persons. The samples for Ghana, Ireland, Mali, and Uruguay extend the pre-existing data series for those countries. The remaining 16 samples are from 5 new countries:
  • Dominican Republic  1960, 1970, 1981, 2002, 2010
  • Ghana  2010
  • Ireland  2011
  • Liberia  1974, 2008
  • Mali  2009
  • Nigeria  2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
  • Ukraine  2001
  • Uruguay  2011
  • Zambia  1990, 2000, 2010
Geographic variables in the collection have been significantly revised. Documentation about the improvements can be found on the geography landing page linked here. Corresponding GIS shapefiles are also available.

The full content of the IPUMS is summarized on the samples page: https://international.ipums.org/international/samples.shtml.
 
As always, all IPUMS data are available free of charge to researchers.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

FREE American Community Survey Data Webinar!

"Accessing Block Group Data with the ACS" Webinar
 
 
Those amazing little block groups are not available in American FactFinder. Find out how to access data at the block group level in this free webinar.

The ACS is an ongoing survey that generates estimates on social, economic, housing, and demographic topics. Data users can access these estimates down to our smallest level of geography, block groups, using the ACS Summary File. This presentation will cover background information about the ACS, an explanation of the ACS Summary File, and a demonstration of accessing block group data using the Summary File Retrieval Tool, DataFerrett, and FTP site.

Date and Time: Tuesday, June 24th from 1:00-2:00 PM
Presenter: Gretchen Gooding, American Community Survey Office

Learn how to log-in by visiting the Census Bureau's Educational Resources page

Friday, May 23, 2014

Changes to DMPTool

If you are using the DMPTool to help you create Data Management Plans, be sure to read the information below on its migration to a new interface. If you are not using, why not? Get in touch with Lynda if you would like more information about using the tool.

On May 29th the DMPTool will be upgraded to a new and improved version! This new version will give you increased functionality, such as the ability to add a collaborator with equal editing rights to your plan.
 
Between  9:00-1:00pm EDT (4 hours) on May 28th the DMPTool will be unavailable.
At Wed May 28, 1:00pm EDT the old DMPTool (Version 1) will be available at available at <https://v1.dmptool.org>. You can continue to access and edit your existing plans, but you will not be able to create new plans.  
 
At Thurs May 29, 9:00am EDT the new DMPTool2 (Version 2) will available at <https://dmptool.org>.  All users and plans will have been migrated from Version 1. You can create new plans and edit existing plans in DMPTool2.  The URL https://dmp.cdlib.org/ will point to information about data management at the University of California.  Formerly this pointed directly to the DMPTool.
 
 

Friday, April 4, 2014

Free ICPSR summer workshop on Measures of Effective Teaching Database

ICPSR has just announced this free summer workshop. Please see below for contact information and application materials.

The Measures of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database: A Review of the MET Project and Available Data

June 9-11, 2014
At ICPSR, Ann Arbor, MI
Application deadline: May 1, 2014

This three-day workshop will offer a broad summary of the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project and resulting Longitudinal Database (MET LDB), including the design and original goals of the MET Project, video collection and scoring procedures, in addition to available data and how they were collected.

The course will include deeper discussion of key elements of the study including the nested data structure (district, school, teacher, student), the randomization process and implications for analysis, and the student surveys. Additionally, time will be spent on practical considerations for current and potential users of the MET data, including logistics of accessing, linking, and scoring the video data, a description of the data file structure and organization, and discussion of the application process and demonstration of the specialized data access tools provided by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
 
Participants will have temporary access to the MET data via the ICPSR Virtual Data Enclave and Secure Video Player for the duration of the workshop, for both structured exercises and independent work.

The workshop is free, but space is limited.
 
Please provide a current CV along with a cover letter summarizing your relevant research interest and experience, as well as methodological training. Graduate student applicants must also provide a letter of recommendation from an advisor.  Participants must have an understanding of secondary data, data analysis skills commensurate with analysis of complex data, and knowledge of SPSS, SAS, or Stata. Additionally, participants are expected to review the available documentation and bring to the workshop tentative research questions that can be addressed by the data.
 
Instructors include original MET Project Partners, MET Early Career Grantees, and ICPSR staff.
 
For more information or to apply, please visit:

Thursday, February 27, 2014

New from ICPSR: openICPSR!

An Orientation to openICPSR - ICPSR's Public Access Data Collection
Join us for a Webinar on March 3
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/783343850
openICPSR has launched in its beta form for use by the ICPSR membership. This webinar will cover the reason behind the public data collection, why researchers might use the service, what other public access data services are in development as part of openICPSR, and importantly, why institutions will want to maintain membership in ICPSR. We’ll also provide a short orientation to the site. The webinar will allow ample time for Q&A from attendees.
Title:An Orientation to openICPSR - ICPSR's Public Access Data Collection
Date:Monday, March 3, 2014
Time:2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Friday, January 31, 2014

Who can vote?

2008-2012 American Community Survey Voting Age Population by Citizenship and Race
 
This tabulation from the 2008-2012 American Community Survey shows estimates of the citizen voting age population by race for small areas of geography.
 
The downloadable files show the population 18 and older by citizenship status and race for the nation, states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, counties, minor civil divisions, places, tracts and block groups. The files reflect both the population living in housing units and in group quarters, such as college dormitories. The new files and technical documentation along with previous versions of the files can be found on the Census Bureau's Redistricting website (www.census.gov/rdo).
 
This is the fourth year in a row that the American Community Survey has produced estimates of this population for even the smallest geographic areas. Prior to the American Community Survey, communities would have to wait 10 years for an update on the citizen voting-age population. Internet address: <http://www.census.gov/rdo/data/voting_age_population_by_citizenship_and_race_cvap.html>.