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.