Social Science Data and Software (SSDS): An Array of Resources and Services
by Judy Marsh
"I'm trying to find statistics on the adoption of new agricultural technologies in Latin American countries. ...with similar climates, agricultural economies and similar developmental tracks... (and) statistics on the rural population density of these countries."
"I have been trying to get some information on (United Nations) roll call votes. I have located some information but I could not download (it)...(could) someone help me with this."
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"I would like to know how I can...import...Excel data into SPSS to obtain chi square results..."
"...you were recommended to me for help using statistical software. I need to perform some regression analyses but I would appreciate some advice with getting started..."
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SSDS data specialists and software consultants help Stanford faculty, staff and students with questions like those above that involve finding and getting data, and selecting and using software for research and instruction. SSDS staff provide a variety of services and support that include consulting, workshops and help documentation. SSDS is part of the Social Sciences Resource Center (SSRC), located on the first floor of the Green Library Bing Wing. (See also Social Sciences Resource Center (SSRC): Key Resources and Services in this issue.) SSDS supports the following services and resources:
Consulting
In-person consulting takes place in The Velma Denning Room, located in the Social Sciences Resource Center (SSRC). Users can drop by the room during scheduled walk-in hours, or contact us via email with questions or arrange an appointment. View our quarterly consulting schedule and contact us via our Web site at:
Software consultants provide support in the selection and use of the most popular quantitative software, SPSS, SAS, and Stata and qualitative software, NVivo, ATLAS.ti and SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys. In addition, they provide assistance and information for researchers who are at various stages in their projects.
Data specialists assist users in finding, getting and downloading data. Data consultations include recommendations for data appropriate for research projects or help navigating the array of data resources--electronic and print--available at Stanford.
Workshops
SSDS staff members offer standard workshops during fall, winter and spring quarters, that introduce SSDS resources and services in general, cover ways to locate datasets, and demonstrate the most popular quantitative and qualitative software.
We discuss how students can plan during the early stages of their research and use quantitative software in their projects--from statistical analysis of large datasets to the graphical display of summary information. In addition, workshop participants learn how qualitative software options available at Stanford can help organize and analyze interviews, field notes, photographs and other types of unstructured data.
Workshop details are available via the SSDS Web site at:
http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/consulting_workshops.html
Key Online Resources
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research): ICPSR is an archive of over 500,000 data and documentation files that includes over 6,300 studies from a variety of disciplines that include sociology, political science, demography, history, economics, gerontology, public health, criminal justice, education and international relations.
Stanford users can download ICPSR data sets directly via the ICPSR Web site from any computer in the Stanford University network or connect off-campus via Stanford's proxy server. More information about and access to, ICPSR is at:
http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/data_icpsr.html
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research: The Roper Center is one of the leading archives of survey data from the U.S. and from over 50 foreign countries and includes the popular question-level databases, iPOLL (U.S. nationwide) and JPOLL (Japanese Data Archive). The RoperExpress service allows Stanford users to download datasets in the Roper collection that are in ASCII or SPSS portable formats. Request other Roper data via the SSDS Web site at:
http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/data_roper.html
Data Extraction Web Interface (DEWI): DEWI is a Web-based tool that provides easy and fast discovery, extraction, and downloading of data. Researchers use DEWI to quickly find and investigate the relevance of new data for their projects and instructors and students use DEWI to incorporate real data into the curriculum, which makes learning more interesting and useful. For example, the Sociology methods courses have used DEWI to obtain extracts of the General Social Survey and Education classes have assigned research projects using the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) data. Find out more about DEWI and take a test drive at:
Print and Electronic Resources
Software: Users visiting The Velma Denning Room can evaluate a variety of quantitative and qualitative software, specialized software for advanced statistical methods and spatial analysis, and software for converting and formatting data between statistical packages.
Data on CD-ROM and Diskette: A rich collection of datasets cover a broad range of social science topics and time-periods from U. S. federal agencies and offices, international organizations, foreign governments and independent producers. Many CD-ROM programs allow users to search and extract datasets and then save them in popular statistical formats for further analysis. Users can access data on CD-ROM from computers in The Velma Denning Room.
SSDS Reference Library: A growing reference collection of software manuals and textbooks on statistics, econometrics and advanced methods is available for in-house use. In addition, users can browse a reference collection of printed codebooks and user manuals for datasets in the SSDS collection.
Getting Started Guides and Help Documents: A variety of help guides and documents assist clients who are just getting started with core quantitative and qualitative software programs (and their use across different operating systems), conversion software, and specialty software. General help documents cover topics such as best practices for data entry and tips and resources for reporting results from data analysis. Guides and documents are included in SSDS workshop information packets. Guides are available in The Velma Denning Room or from the SSDS Web site at:
http://library.stanford.edu/services/social_sci_data_soft/software_docs.html
