The Giant Social Sciences Data Home
An ISSR Short Course by Steve McGinty
Date: Thursday, February 21, 2013
Time: 10:00-11:00 am
Location: ISSR Training Lab W37E Machmer Hall (3rd Floor, West Wing)
Click here to register for this workshop
Description:
Many social scientists draw on secondary data collected from just a few nationally known
surveys (e.g. the GSS, PSID, IPUMS, NLSY, Census, CPS, LIS, BLS, etc.), but there
are thousands of useful social science survey data that go underutilized. This workshop
is designed to introduce social scientists to the Inter-University Consortium for Political
and Social Research (ICPSR). This is a data repository at the U. of Michigan that houses
over 500,000 files of publicly available data sets. Topics will include searching for and
retrieving data sets, and an introduction to preparing one’s own data for deposit into the
repository. ICPSR does not provide publications, reports, or ready-made statistics. What
ICPSR does supply are the numeric raw data used to create publications, reports, and
figures.
Course Objectives:
•How to find data sets that shed light on your specific research question
•Understand the role played by ICPSR in research
•Introduce the concept of data sharing and deposit