Understanding ICPSR Four “Tours” of ICPSR Research Data Services &

Education Resources

Fall 2014

What’s Included – Four Tours in One• What, Why, & Who of “ICPSR”

– Mission and usage of ICPSR– ICPSR’s past & present– Benefits of membership

• Finding Research Data for Analysis– Scope & search strategies– Data tools

• ICPSR in Education– ICPSR Summer Program– Teaching resources– Student internships & research opportunities

• Sustainable Data Management & Curation– Fulfilling grant requirements– Deposit and curation options and resources– Sharing restricted-use data

Tour I: The What, Why, & Who of ICPSR

ICPSR’s MissionICPSR advances and expands social and behavioral research,

acting as a global leader in data stewardship and providing rich data resources and responsive educational opportunities for

present and future generations.

Three Pillars for Implementing our Mission

1. Share data – maximize access to research data for analysis and publications

2. Educate and train current & future research methodologists & data scientists

3. Provide data management & curation services to fulfill grant requirements and assure long-term viability of research data

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

documents from researchers (PIs, research agencies, government)

• Process, describe (tag), and preserve the data and documents

• Disseminate (share) data• Provide education, training, &

instructional resources• Offer grant-writing and fulfillment

support and data management services

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

research data• Conduct secondary research (analysis) to support

findings of current research or to generate new findings

• Study or teach quantitative methods (data analysis techniques)

• Study data curation and repository management• Use as intro material in grant proposals• Preserve/disseminate primary research data

– Fulfill data management plan (grant) and data sharing requirements

Who uses ICPSR? - Over 40 Disciplines/Fields Supported -

• 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 8,870 studies with over 65,000 data sets

• Membership organization among 22 universities, now:– Currently about 750 members world-wide– Federal funding of public-access collections

ICPSR’s Past & Present

Present Volumes of Activity• 7,591 studies: 64,926 datasets: 177,656 files

available for download– 1,194 restricted studies (6,359 datasets)

• FY 2014– 683,204 datasets downloaded– 38,924 active MyData accounts– 457,449 website visits/300,198 unique visitors– 1,040+ Summer Program attendees

Most Popular Downloads this Past Year:• National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health• National Survey on Drug Use and Health• General Social Surveys (1972-2012 Cumulative)• National Survey of Midlife Development in the US (MIDUS)• Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS)• Chinese Household Income Project• Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN)• India Human Development Survey• National Prisoner Statistics• National Health and Social Life Survey• Health Behavior in School-Aged Children• American National Election Study• Education Longitudinal Study (ELS)

Benefits of Membership in ICPSR• Data access: 4,872 studies associated with 28,475 curated datasets including:

– General Social Survey– American National Election Survey– Education Longitudinal Survey– New Family Structures Study

• Teaching resources (Data-Driven Learning Guides) available exclusively to ICPSR members

• Discounted ICPSR Summer Program tuition• Discounts on deposit fees related to openICPSR – ICPSR’s public data access

collection• Menu of data usage reports across your institution immediately available

electronically • Data management plan and budget estimate support for grant proposals• Access to a global network of over 750 institutions of all sizes interested in

research data, data curation, and training

Tour II: Finding Research Data for Analysis

If you recall: Most Popular Downloads this Past Year:• National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health• National Survey on Drug Use and Health• General Social Surveys (1972-2012 Cumulative)• National Survey of Midlife Development in the US (MIDUS)• Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS)• Chinese Household Income Project• Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN)• India Human Development Survey• National Prisoner Statistics• National Health and Social Life Survey• Health Behavior in School-Aged Children• American National Election Study• Education Longitudinal Study (ELS)

What’s in a “Download?”• Documentation files - pdfs

– Questionnaire– Codebook– Description & Citation

• Data in many forms!– SPSS, SAS, Stata– ASCII

How does One Download 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

Enter Our Front Office: ICPSR Website

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/

The Challenge – Hoards of Data & MetadataHow does one make sense of:

• 7,600 studies• 65,000 datasets• 177,700 files• Millions of variables• 64,600 bibliographic citations

Search Strategies to Find & Analyze Data

ICPSR’s Thematic Data Collections – another search strategy• ICPSR’s Thematic Collections are

archives organized around specific topics

• Most collections are funded by government agencies or foundations and therefore data are open to the public

• Data from all collections, including the membership archive, are searchable by using the search found on ICPSR’s Find & Analyze page

• Those desiring to search for data only within a particular collection should use the search provided within that collection

The Study Home Page: Where Documentation Lives!

It’s really a searchable database• Containing over 64,600 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 one integrated search on the ICPSR website

Data Tools: Find PublicationsThe Bibliography of Data-related Literature

Data Tools: Social Science Variables DatabaseEnables ICPSR users to:• Search & Compare Variables across

datasets• Assists in:

– Data discovery – Comparison/harmonization projects – Data harvesting & data analysis– Question mining for designing new research– Research methods & substantive courses

instruction

Analyze & Compare Variables

Data Tools: Online “On-Demand” Analysis“View SDA Studies”

SDA Output

Supporting the Data• Free user support• The Get Help Page offers:

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

– Data User Help Center: Short Tutorials & Webinars available 24/7 (via ICPSR’s YouTube channel)

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

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slideshare, and more

Tour III: ICPSR in Education

ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods

• Instruction on the tools and practices needed to analyze data• For those with math phobia and those with advanced analysis

skills• 3-5 day workshops and 4-8 week courses• Primarily held in Ann Arbor, MI, on the campus of The University of Michigan, but some courses on other campuses also• http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/

Teaching Resources to Bring Data Into the Classroom

• Easy to use features of ICPSR’s website in classes– Social Science Variables Database– Bibliography of Data-Related Literature– SDA – Online Analysis

• Additionally, in partnership with teaching faculty, ICPSR has developed:– Short Exercises – the DDLGs– Online teaching modules– Online tutorials

Bring Data Into the Classroom

Data-Driven Learning Guides – over 50 stand-alone exercises that teach social & behavioral science concepts via standardized, ready-to-go, online analysis

Crosstab Assignment Builder – a utility to build simple tables for analysis that the instructor can share with students

Online Modules

Student Internships & Research Opportunities

• Paid Student Internships focusing on investigating social & behavioral sciences research – an REU

• Research paper competitions -- a research journal experience & cash prizes!

Tour IV: Sustainable Data Management & Curation

First - The Concept of “Data Curation”• Curation, from the Latin "to care," is the process used to add value to

data, maximize access, and ensure long-term preservation• Data curation is akin to work performed by an art or museum curator.

– Data are organized, described, cleaned, enhanced, and preserved for public use, much like the work done on paintings or rare books to make the works accessible to the public now and in the future

• Curation provides meaningful and enduring access to data• Data curation is the foundation for effective, long-term data sharing

Two ‘Recent’ Moments in Federal Data Sharing History

• NSF: January 2011 – requirement of data management plans

• OSTP: February 2013 – Memo with subject “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research”

The details are still developing but the focus for research data sharing includes:

1. Maximize public access (includes discoverability)2. Protect confidentiality and privacy3. Allow for inclusion of costs in proposals for federal funding of

scientific research4. Appropriate evaluation of submitted data plans5. Compliance mechanisms6. Cooperation with the private sector7. Appropriate attribution8. Long term preservation and sustainability

What is good data sharing?

The goals are simple:• Data gets used (maximizes taxpayer

investment & credits investigators)• Available today and into the future• Research respondent protection

ICPSR offers Three Sustainable Data Sharing Models to Fulfill Requirements

• Fee-for-access model (membership archive)• Agency model (agency or foundation funds

public access)• Fee-for-deposit model (researcher writes fee

into grant and pays at deposit to fund public access)

ICPSR’s Fee-for-Access Data Sharing

• Funding is maintained by annual membership (subscription) fees charged to institutions; individuals at member institutions have free (open) access to data

• Pooled (ongoing) fees are used to acquire, curate, and maintain the service

• Datasets can be acquired by non-members for a fee

ICPSR’S Agency-funded Data Sharing• Agency sponsors/funds (ongoing) data curation & sharing enabling the

public to access without charge• The archive is hosted by ICPSR where the public can easily discover and

access data and restricted-use data can also be securely shared• Agency directs data selection and compliance policies

ICPSR’s Fee-for-Deposit Data Sharing - openICPSR -

• Depositor (individual or entity) pays for data to be curated and stored – a fee at deposit

• Deposit fees to be written into the grant application

• Incoming deposit fees sustain the service and the professionals behind it

• Deposits are bit-level to-date, but fully curated deposits are encouraged and welcomed!

Data Management & Curation Resources

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/datamanagement/

Purpose of Data Management Plans

• Data management plans describe how researchers will provide for long-term preservation of, and access to, scientific data in digital formats.

• Data management plans provide opportunities for researchers to manage and curate their data more actively from project inception to completion.

Data Management Plan Resources

Guidelines for Download

And still more guidelines after the project is awarded:

• Guide emphasizes preparation for data sharing throughout the project

• Available online and via download (pdf)

Sharing Restricted-Use Data

• Data with disclosure risk – potential to identify a research subject

• Data with highly sensitive personal information

What is Restricted-Use Data?

Common Objection/Misperception: “My data are too sensitive to share. . .”• ICPSR has been sharing restricted-use data for

over a decade via three methods:– Secure Download– Virtual Data Enclave– Physical Enclave

• ICPSR stores & shares over 6,400 restricted-use datasets associated with over 2,000 ‘active’ restricted-use data contracts

Reality: Restricted-use data can be effectively shared with the public• Through the use of a virtual data enclave where

the data never leave the server• Where there is a process (and understanding!)

to garner IRB approval from the requesting scientist’s university

• Where there is a system, technology, data professionals, and collaboration space in place to disseminate (expensive to build!)

• Because federal agencies do allow for an incremental charge to the data requestor to offset marginal costs

The Visual

For More Information on ICPSR:• 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