Thursday, May 27, 3:30-5:00pm

DDCN: Data on Transition and Emerging Market Economies on the Web
Cristina Negrut and Patricia Loh (William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan Business School)

Davidson Data Center and Network (DDCN) is an integrated, fully searchable database on transition and emerging markets. DDCN archives and provides free access to socio-economic micro and macro data on transition economies. There are three main functions that DDCN performs. As a data locator, DDCN points to data resources, primarily available on the web, held by other institutions (both free data and from commercial vendors). DDCN also archives and disseminates data. Data sets that can be made available in the public domain are downloadable directly from the website at no charge. Lastly, DDCN facilitates data exchanges between researchers and between institutions. For data that cannot be made available in the public domain, DDCN assumes an active role in the brokering of access.

DDCN is a NSF sponsored project.

More information available at: http://ddcn.prowebis.com

SOEPINFO
Jan Goebel (DIW German Institute for Economic Research)
Authors: Ingo Sieber, Dr. John P. Haisken-DeNew

SOEPINFO is an online meta-data information tool, providing detailed information on the structure and content of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the longest running household panel data set in Europe. As the SOEP contains approximately 40,000 variables, from 1984 to the present, at the household, person and event level among others, SOEPINFO is required to manage the vast amount of meta information concerning the data. From its very inception, SOEPINFO is a client-server application which uses POSTGRESQL and dynamically generates HTML and JavaScript code for the Web-Browser client, based entirely on open-source software. SOEPINFO contains all questionnaires in HTML clickable format, such that the variables associated with each question are clickable. Once a variable has been selected in the questionnaire, the variable is added to the "basket" in a manner similar to that of e-commerce retailers. One can type in a word and run a keyword search, and SOEPINFO will search through value labels, variable labels, and item labels to find a match. Variable names can be entered in a similar matter. Once the variables are found, they can be added to the "basket." For the variables in the basket, various actions can be taken: simple frequency information and item-correspondences between waves can be displayed. Further, command files in Stata, SPSS and SAS can be automatically generated, based on exactly those variables in the basket, allowing the user to retrieve these variables without previous detailed knowledge of the data structure. The variable information listed in the basket can be saved to the user's disk as a SOEP project and reloaded to the SOEPINFO system at any time.

Steps Towards Full Integration of Programs at the Roper Center
Cindy Teixeira (Roper Center, University of Connecticut)

This demonstration will highlight the recent integration of primary Roper Center programs and services including iPOLL, the Catalog of Holdings, and Public Opinion Matters.

The iPOLL database is a full-text, question level retrieval system, designed so that users can locate and examine responses to questions asked of a US national population on a wide range of topics since 1935. Recent upgrades include the capability of using iPOLL as a search tool for identifying datasets held within the Roper Center 's Archives, and the implementation of IP authentication for member organizations.

The Catalog of Holdings is a searchable database containing metadata on nearly 15,000 datasets. Over 5,000 datasets have electronic documentation currently available for download.

Public Opinion Matters is an educational web page that focuses on a new topic each month. POM offers a generous free sampling of related polling data and details of topically pertinent surveys held by the Roper Center, along with articles published in Public Perspective magazine.

EXANDA: A Web-based Utility to Explore and Analyze Data
Joachim Wackerow (ZUMA - Centre for Survey Research and Methodology)

Exanda is used to offer online analysis access to survey data through web browsers. On the one hand interested researchers could get a first impression of a data set. On the other hand people without experience with statistic programs could generate simple analysis results.

The features include statistical tabulation, interactive bar charts, and case selection. The results are offered in various output formats. The DDI format is used to generate the underlying database tables and to transform the metadata on a survey to various output formats.

Exanda is a server-based utility, which is build on top of several open source programs like MySQL, Tomcat, and Cocoon. The program itself is free software, made available under the GNU General Public License.

Exanda is used to offer online access to the German Welfare Survey, scheduled for public availability in the first quarter of 2004.

We outline the design of Exanda, and demonstrate the use of the program to analyze survey data online.

Accent on Image at Edinburgh
Alison Bayley, Peter Burnhill, Stuart Macdonald & Robin Rice (EDINA National Datacentre & University Data Library, Edinburgh)

The image is an important source of evidence for social science research, as well important in presentation. The poster presentation from EDINA National Datacentre and the University of Edinburgh's Data Library will focus on national and local delivery of:

• still and moving image services
• maps and mapping

framed within web site presentation.

Also on show in the Edinburgh poster session will be promotion for IASSIST 2005, including tourist and other information about the City.

Demonstration of NARA's Access to Archival Databases (AAD) Resource
Peggy Adams, Tom Brown, and Michael Carlson (National Archives and Records Administration)

In this poster/demonstration session, we will demonstrate our online search and retrieval utility for access to archival electronic records. The resource is known as the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) resource (http://www.archives.gov/aad). AAD offers public online search and retrieval of specific records from a selection of NARA's archival databases. Series of files chosen for AAD are "born digital federal data," generally created for some internal programmatic purpose (other than research) by an agency of the U.S. federal government, in which the individual records document information about identifiable persons, places, activities, incidents, war operations, or financial awards, contracts and transactions, etc. AAD allows NARA to expand its reference services in a manner that is responsive to public expectations for access to specific records from some of NARA's electronic records files. We are anxious to share this development with our IASSIST colleagues, and hope to benefit from their reactions to it.

CPANDA
Ann Gray (Princeton University)

CPANDA (http://www.cpanda.org) is a fully functioning topical data archive built on the latest technologies, including the DDI, incorporating original content, interactive data analysis (SDA), data archiving, standardized data documentation, integration of documentation and data, and other useful tools. We can demonstrate how the DDI and XML markup can be integrated with SDA tools to form a useful means of obtaining data and statistics for a varied audience. CPANDA staff are on the DDI development team and IASSIST members are part of the CPANDA advisory group. CPANDA is a FREE service housed at Princeton University Library, developed in cooperation with Princeton Center for Cultural Policy Studies and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Our participation at IASSIST will both allow IASSIST members to learn about the content of the archive and see how standards and markup can be used.

Repurposing Social Science Data for Use in Teaching and Learning
Louise Corti ( UK Data Archive, University of Essex )

The UKDA Survey Data in Teaching (SdiT) project (http://x4l.data-archive.ac.uk), which is funded under the JISC Exchange for Learning (X4L) Programme, aims to increase the use of real data sources in the classroom, and to improve the data literacy of GCE A level (16-18) and university students up to postgraduate level. It uses the study of crime in society to show how existing data sources can be utilised, and as such, is relevant to a range of social science disciplines such as sociology, politics, psychology, media studies and citizenship studies. The outputs from the project are a variety of free teaching and learning resources and associated data analysis software relating to social science and statistics. The materials are based on learning strategies that encourage the teaching of research methods within a substantive context and are designed to be used as part of standard classroom teaching or as additional/self-paced learning activities.

Further information about the project mythology and demonstrations of the online resources will be available.

NESSTAR
Jostein Ryssevik (NESSTAR, Ltd.)

NESSTAR is an infrastructure for data dissemination via the Internet. The NESSTAR Explorer provides an end user interface for searching, analysing and downloading data and documentation. The NESSTAR Publisher provides the tools and resources for making the data and documentation available via the Internet.