ESDS Government Resources for Government Crime Surveys ESDS Government Centre for Census and Survey Research University of Manchester.

ESDS Government Resources for Government Crime Surveys

ESDS Government Centre for Census and Survey Research

University of Manchester

ESDS Government

• Funded by ESRC, part of larger ESDS since 2003• Supports major UK data series

– Large surveys conducted, usually by government, e.g: • British Crime Survey • Labour Force Survey• General Household Survey• Health Survey for England • etc

– Repeated cross-sections, often continuous– Important, widely used microdata

• Joint service– Team at UK Data Archive ingest and archive data– Team at Manchester deal with users– Registration for the data managed by ESDS centrally

Role

• Promoting the use of the data • Navigating users through the right

materials• Creating additional materials to help users

discover datasets and supporting materials• Encouraging good practice• Bridging the gap between data collector

and users

A Good Place to start...Crime Theme

• Crime guide provides an overview of data sources including crime

• Theme page provides links to– Crime guide– Data pages– Relevant other sites and

resources

What do our users use the data for?

2 online searchable databases:• Current Usage: Registration

information records the research use to which data is put. We share registration information on our web site if the user permits

• Publications: Users are requested to inform ESDS of publications, but we also harvest information from the ISI WOK bibliographic database

Variable search • Variable search based on

the names and labels of variables

Other web-based resources to support users

• Guiding new users through specific datasets e.g. BCS– Survey pages, FAQs, Starting Analysis, Variables search, Publications

database, Data usage search

• Methodological Guides• SPSS• Stata• Guide to weighting• Analysing Change Over Time• Working with survey files: using hierarchical data, matching files and pooling data

• Thematic Guides to using the government surveys

• Teaching datasets

• Links to other useful web resources

Outreach events

Introductory workshops Joint workshops with other ESDS servicesMethods workshopsResearch conferencesDataset user meetingsOther presentationsPosters

Help-desk

• Several hundred a year• Range of different ranges of complexity:

– How do I get access to the BCS?– Which weight should I use?– What level of geography can I get?– Why does my analysis show high levels of

missing data?– The documentation says variable X is in the data

but I can’t find it

• Help desk involves collaboration with UKDA, HO, ONS, NatCen etc

Keeping in touch

• Biannual newsletter

• Join our email list for newsesds-govsurveys@jiscmail.ac.uk

• Home page contains news– Our news– New data

And in ESDS as a whole...

For Further info:

Helpdesk: govsurveys@esds.ac.uk

(0161) 275 1980

Website:http://www.esds.ac.uk/government

JISCmail: esds-govsurveys@jiscmail.ac.uk

CRIM-BCS-USERS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

Friends of ours...

http://surveynet.ac.ukhttp://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/survey-

resources-network.html

Survey pages

Guiding new users through...

What do our users use the data for?

2 online searchable databases:• Current Usage: Registration

information records the research use to which data is put. We share registration information on our web site if the user permits

• Publications: Users are requested to inform ESDS of publications, but we also harvest information from the ISI WOK bibliographic database

Variable search • Variable search based on

the names and labels of variables

Statistical/analysis guides

• Introduction to SPSS (uses HSE)

• Introduction to STATA (uses LFS)

• Weighting the social surveys

• Analysing Change Over Time

• Working with survey files: using hierarchical data, matching files and pooling data

Teaching datasets

• Cut-down data for teaching• 2000 data – core sample• Excludes boosts• Includes weights for individual

and household analysis • 55 variables • User guide