ICPSR Data Services @ Kenyon College

Frederique Laubepin, Instructional ResourcesDavid Thomas, Resource Center for Minority Data

Agenda• Intro of the day and agenda• ICPSR in the Kenyon Classroom

– Professor Corker– Professor Kohlman

• ICPSR Background• Searching ICPSR Holdings• ICPSR and data in the classroom• Questions?

• One of the world’s oldest and largest social science data archives, est. 1962

• Data distributed on punch cards, then reel-to-reel tape, now: – Data available on demand– Over 8,200 studies with over 68,700 data sets

• Membership organization among 21 universities, now:– Currently about 735 members world-wide– Federal funding of public collections

What is ICPSR? - Then and Now -

What We Do – It’s About Data!• Seek research data and

pertinent documents from researchers (PIs, research agencies, government)

• Process and preserve the data and documents

• Disseminate data• Provide education, training,

& instructional resources

Why People Use ICPSR• Write articles, papers, or theses using real

research data• Conduct secondary research to support findings

of current research or to generate new findings• Use as intro material in grant proposals• Preserve/disseminate primary research data

– Fulfill data management plan (grant) requirements

• Study or teach quantitative methods

“Shopping” for Data: The MyData Account• MyData account – operates as authentication and like a

shopping cart!• Authenticate once every six months on campus and you can

carry it with you

Supporting the Data• Free user support• The HELP Page offers:

– User support (at ICPSR) email and phone contact information

– Data User Help Center: Short Tutorials & Webinars available 24/7

– Local Support: Who to contact at your local institution– Glossary of Terms– Social Networks: Where you can find us on YouTube,

Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, and more

It’s really a searchable database . . . containing over 62,500 citations of known published

and unpublished works resulting from analyses of data archived at ICPSR

. . .that can generate study bibliographies associating each study with the literature about it. . . Included in the integrated search

on the ICPSR Web site

The Bibliography of Data-related Literature

Demonstrating the Impact of Research

Assessing the data in the collection

• Searching for and Downloading data• Simple crosstab• Codebook• Full Descriptives• Online Analysis Functionality

Study Search Behaviors

In practice, we encounter three typical search behaviors from our users:• A user has a research question in mind.• A user is looking for a dataset that contains

specific variables.• A user is looking for a specific dataset and has

the study title or investigator name.

http://staging.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/survey-test.jsp

Natural Language Searching

• Does juvenile drug use lead to delinquency?• juvenile “drug use” delinquency• “juvenile drug use” delinquency

Searching by Variable/Concept

Searching for a Specific Dataset

Search Conclusion

• Sorting by “Variable Relevance” – ranks the variable text (questions, labels,

categories) highly so that top results contain the variable concepts

–displays matching variables on the search results screen

–allows you to check variables and compare them side-by-side

–provides direct links to the full variable description

• Separating search terms with commas treats each as a distinct variable/concept. –drug abuse, gender, race–newspaper in home, voting, party affiliation

Find Data

Simple Crosstab

Compare Variables

Crosstab Creator

Crosstab Assignment Builder

Online Analysis

For More Info:• Explore the website - www.icpsr.umich.edu

• Sign up for our email announcements - www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/membership/lists/index.jsp

• “Like” ICPSR on Facebook/follow ICPSR on Twitter• Attend or view our webinars (open to the public!)• Find our presentations on www.slideshare.net –

user: icpsr

• Contact user support – netmail@icpsr.umich.edu