Introduction to the University Data Library and national data services

1. Introduction to theUniversity Data Libraryand national data services Robin Rice & Stuart Macdonald data librarians Graduate School of Social & Political Science Induction 13 & 14 September, 2012

2. Outline • About the Data Library • Data Library services & resources • National data services for social sciences • UKDA, ESDS, National Data Service • Census programme • EDINA • Non-academic data sources

3. Divisions User Services Library and Collections IT Infrastructure Applications EDINA and Data Library Digital Curation Centre EDINA and Data Library within Information Services

4. 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, 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 through various means (CD-/DVD-ROMs or central server for download). A data library may also maintain subscriptions to licensed data resources.

5. Why share and re-use data?

6. 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 • Became a national data centre as EDINA in 1993 - data library continues University remit • celebrated 25th anniversary in 2008

7. Data Library - http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-library

8. Data Library & Consultancy • 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.” • Using … “I’ve got the data I need, but I’m not sure how to analyse it in my chosen software.” • Managing … “I have collected my own data and I’d like to document and preserve it and make it available to others.” • Reference Interviews

9. 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) 5 Buccleuch Place, 2nd floor Tel.: 0131 651 1431 or 0131 651 1744 Email: datalib@ed.ac.uk

11. Research Data Management Services • RDM Guidance via suite of web pages • Research data management training: • Research Data MANTRA course • 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 • Institutional data repository provision • Assistance with deposit in national archives

12. Research Data MANTRA(Management Training) Organising data Documentation & metadata Storage & security File formats & transformations Data management planning PLUS software-specific data handling practicals Open online, self-paced course for PhD students http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra

13. Edinburgh DataShare-http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/

15. Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMeN)- http://aqmen.ac.uk/ • 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. • Aim is to build capacity in the use of quantitative methods amongst Scotland’s social science community 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 • Consultancy Service is available to PhD students and people working in Scotland who require help with social science research that involves quantitative analysis • Links to training & events and an online discussion forum

17. Introduction to National Data Services

18. 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 • Census.ac.uk • Rural Economy and Land Use Programme Data Support Service • Secure Data Service • Survey Question Bank UK Data Archive

19. UKDA-http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/

20. 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

21. ESDS -http://www.esds.ac.uk/

22. ESDS features include: Data – full/partial catalogue search, browse by subject, also links tomajor 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, metadata 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)

23. 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 socio-demographic 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

25. Casweb -http://casweb.mimas.ac.uk (NOTE:Casweb soon to be replaced by InFuse -http://infuse.mimas.ac.uk/)

26. UK Data Service £17 million investment over 5 years Funded by ESRC – new service is structured to support researchers in academia, business, third sector and all levels of government Commences 1 October 2012 – will integrate ESDS, Census Programme, Secure Data Service, and other elements of the data service infrastructure currently provided by ESRC, including UK Data Archive A single point of access to economic and social data Distributed service led by University of Essex in collaboration with Universities of Manchester and Southampton

27. Implications No immediate changes to existing web addresses for the ESDS, the Census Support Service and the Secure Data Service Appropriate redirections will be implemented as changes are introduced as part of the new integrated service in early 2013 Existing data service registrations will continue, subject to the usual annual reconfirmation. In the longer term, the UK Data Service will be making much data openly available (beyond UK tertiary education) and will be offering a broader and more integrated range of tools to users.

28. 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) • delivers about 20 online services • has about 10 major projects (including services in development) • employs about 80 staff (Edinburgh & St Helens)

29. UKBORDERS –http://edina.ac.uk/ukborders/

30. EDINA Digimap -http://digimap.edina.ac.uk/

32. Government data sources • National Records of Scotland (NRS) – http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/ • Scottish Census Results Online – http://www.scrol.gov.uk/scrol/common/home.jsp • Office for National Statistics (ONS) – http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/ • ONS Neighbourhood Statistics – http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/ • Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS) – http://www.sns.gov.uk/ • NISRA - http://www.nisra.gov.uk/ • Welsh Government Statistics - http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/?lang=en

33. The Guardian Datastore has loads of examples of telling stories with data

34. A Data Future “The ability to take data - to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualise it, to communicate it –that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades.” Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist. Hal Varian, ChiefSlide from Marieke Guy, UKOLN

35. Pics from Flickr (creative commons attribution) – credits include: D Sharon Pruitt Ask us about data stuart.macdonald@ed.ac.uk r.rice@ed.ac.uk datalib@ed.ac.uk