Archive of 2005 Announcements
ICPSR Endowment Drive for Warren Miller Scholars Fund
As one of the principal founders of ICPSR, Warren Miller was a scholar, institution-builder, teacher, and mentor whose contributions redefined the focus and methods of the social and behavioral sciences and inspired generations of scholars.
Shortly after his death in 1999, his friends and family created the Miller Scholars Fund to honor Warren and continue his work at ICPSR. The endowment provides financial support to outstanding pretenure scholars in the social and behavioral sciences from around the country to attend the Summer Program.
For the first time in its history, ICPSR is reaching out to its alumni and friends around the world to ask them to join Warren's friends and family by making a gift to assure that deserving students can attend the Summer Program. In order to thank our donors, Hank Heitowit, Director of the Summer Program, has agreed to give a 2005 Summer Program t-shirt to anyone making a gift over $250.
The Summer Program has always been dedicated to identifying and challenging the next generation of empirical social scientists. For over 40 years, students from around the world have responded to the challenge and enhanced their careers. Please join Warren Miller's colleagues and families in providing a new generation with the same opportunity.
For more information or to donate, see the Warren Miller Scholars Fund Web site or see the Fall 2005 ICPSR Bulletin.
2005-12-02
Job Posting: Digital Preservation Officer at ICPSR
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) seeks to appoint a Digital Preservation Officer to develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive digital preservation framework. The individual selected for this position will hold a research faculty appointment in ICPSR, and will report directly to the Director of ICPSR. Joint appointment with other University of Michigan units is possible.
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the international infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant. In addition, ICPSR provides user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data for analysis and in conducting their research projects.
A full description of the position, including requirements, can be found the University of Michigan Job site.
Applicants should submit a letter of application, a CV, three letters of reference, and relevant writing samples to:
Myron P. Gutmann
Director, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social
Research
Professor of History
The University of Michigan
PO Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248
Screening of applications will begin shortly and continue until the position is filled. The University of Michigan is a Non-Discriminatory Affirmative Action Employer.
2005-12-07
IASSIST 2006 Call for Papers
The International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) invites your participation in its 32nd annual conference entitled Data in a World of Networked Knowledge on May 22-26, 2006, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The conference will be preceded by workshops and followed by optional weekend activities in the Ann Arbor area. Details about the conference and the association may be found on the IASSIST Web site at: http://www.iassistdata.org.
Proposals for papers, sessions and poster/demonstrations should be submitted by January 16, 2006.
The 2006 conference theme, Data in a World of Networked Knowledge, highlights the role of empirical data in a society that wishes not only to know itself, but also to build an enduring, interconnected storehouse of knowledge for learning and research. Once again IASSIST offers a time and place to explore, enlighten, and energize the participation of data professionals in the networked information world. We seek submissions of papers, poster/demonstration sessions, and panel sessions on topics that address the full range of digital data life cycle issues, including those that focus on access, documentation, dissemination, preservation, data use and current empirical research activity.
Additional topics might also include information and statistical literacy, data confidentiality and statistical disclosure, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial data, as well as publication, annotation, curation and authentication of networked knowledge assets.
For other key topics, see previous IASSIST Conferences at http://www.iassistdata.org/conferences/index.html.
About IASSIST
IASSIST is an international organization of professionals working in and with information technology and data services to support research and teaching in the social sciences. The organization also explores issues of access, stewardship, and the interconnections among social science, behavioral, biological, and health data. Typical workplaces include quantitative and qualitative data archives/libraries, statistical agencies, research centers, libraries, academic departments, government departments, and nonprofit organizations. See the IASSIST Web site at http://www.iassistdata.org for further information.
IASSIST conferences bring together data professionals, data producers, and data analysts from around the world for presentations and workshops covering new and persistent issues relating to access to data, its documentation, and digital preservation, with special emphasis on the social sciences. The social sciences have a long history of data sharing activity which will make the conference of interest to colleagues in disciplines where improving data access practices is on the policy agenda, and where there are clear overlaps with digital curation, data publishing, e-science/cyberinfrastructure initiatives, and new interdisciplinary collaborations.
The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ), available online from the IASSIST Web site and in print, is another important means of communication for the data community. Each year, IQ features the papers associated with conference presentations. Of special note is the IASSIST Publication Award, involving a cash prize for the winning paper. For further details see: http://www.iassistdata.org/publications/pubaward.html.
The IASSIST Outreach Committee accepts applications from data professionals in countries with emerging economies for funding to attend IASSIST 2006. More information about the Outreach Committee's work, including funding criteria and online application form, can be found at http://www.iassist.ucdavis.edu.
Procedure
The deadline for paper, session, and poster/demonstration proposals is January 16, 2006. The Conference Program Committee will send notification of the acceptance of proposals on or before February 10, 2006.
Individual presentation proposals and session proposals are welcome. Proposals for complete sessions, typically a panel of three to four presentations within a 90-minute session, should provide information on the focus of the session, the organizer or moderator, and possible participants. The session organizer or moderator will be responsible for securing session participants, some of whom may submit paper proposals independently.
Both paper and session proposals, including proposed title and an abstract (recommended length 150 words), should be submitted using the link on the following Web site: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/iassist/call.html.
Alternatively, proposals may be sent via e-mail to iassist06@gmail.com. In this case, please use a subject heading of "Paper proposal - Your Name" or "Session proposal - Your Name" replacing "Your Name" with the name of the author/session organizer.
Further information on travel and accommodations will be available at links from the IASSIST 2006 Conference Web site: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/iassist/. Online registration is scheduled to open on February 1, 2006.
Make plans to come to Ann Arbor for the IASSIST 2006 Conference May 22-26, 2006.
2005-10-12
New MyData Update Notification Service
ICPSR is pleased to announce the creation of a new MyData notification service. Users who enroll in this notification service will automatically receive e-mail notices when a study that they previously downloaded is substantively updated.
For example, User A downloads a study in September. In November, the principal investigator contacts ICPSR because s/he discovers an error in the documentation that might affect analysis results. After ICPSR corrects the error, User A will receive an e-mail stating that the study has been updated and that s/he may wish to go to the ICPSR Web site and re-download the files.
To sign up for this service, please go to the ICPSR Web site, log in to your MyData account, and choose the Notification Services link. The direct link for that page is:
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cgi-bin/bob/notserv?path=ICPSR
If you wish to stop receiving these notifications at any time, simply go to the Notification Services page and choose "No" instead.
ICPSR will be developing more notification services, such as notifying users when new studies are released in a particular series or subject area(s). If you have any suggestions about this or other new services, please e-mail web-support@icpsr.umich.edu.
2005-10-03
ICPSR to assist Katrina-affected researchers, faculty and students
ICPSR would like to support our colleagues affected by Hurricane Katrina by offering these means of assistance:
- In cooperation with the University of Michigan, ICPSR can host faculty, graduate students, and post docs by providing workspace/technology, assistance with housing, travel support, library privileges, and email accounts.
- We can provide paid internships to a number of undergraduate or graduate students who will be transferring to the University of Michigan for this semester.
- As researchers begin to resume their research activities, we can accommodate requests for data via alternative means.
For more information, please consult this offer of support (PDF 306K) from ICPSR Director Myron Gutmann.
2005-09-15
Full Text of Bibliography Articles Available
ICPSR is pleased to announce that its Bibliography of Data-Related Literature now contains links to the full text of journal articles. The links provide users from ICPSR Direct institutions quick access to the digital content of journals available at their local institutions, usually through their libraries.
Bibliography users now see additional links within the Bibliography. Clicking on a link opens a new window that contains links to a digital version or versions of the selected article, as well as a link to the local library's catalog in case the article is not available digitally.
The links work through the magic of OpenURL technology, which runs invisibly behind the scenes to send portions of citation metadata to a link resolver at the user's local institution. Users are identified by IP address so the metadata gets sent to their respective institutions' link resolvers. Link resolvers are subscription-based services, typically part of a library's Web-based electronic resources, that accept citation metadata and locate digital copies of documents in a variety of licensed databases.
These full text links are available to ICPSR Direct member institutions that have submitted their OpenURL link resolver information. Institutions that have not yet signed up can do so by submitting the form at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/citations/link-form.html or by e-mailing the following information to bibliography@icpsr.umich.edu:
- Name of your institution
- Do you have a link resolver (also known as a "link server") at your institution? (Check with your library or technology coordinator if you're not sure.) If your answer is yes, skip to #4.
- If the answer to #2 is no, is your institution planning to use a link resolver in the future? If your answer is no, you can skip the rest of the questions. If your answer is yes, answer #4 and then skip to #7.
- Name of your link resolver, or future link resolver (e.g., SFX, EBSCO LinkSource)
- Base URL of your link resolver (This is the address to which our server will send OpenURLs.)
- If you have a button icon image (.gif or .jpg) for your link resolver, please send the link or attach it to your e-mail.
- Name of person at your institution we should contact if we have further questions about your link resolver service (if that person is not you)
- Other contact person's e-mail address
- Other contact person's phone number
Links to freely-available Web documents (e.g., government and non-governmental reports and working papers) continue to be available to all ICPSR Bibliography users.
This service was developed by ICPSR's Collection Delivery and Computer and Network Services units, with assistance from librarians at the University of Michigan Graduate Library and representatives from link resolver vendors Ex Libris (SFX), EBSCO (Link Source), and Serials Solutions (Article Linker).
2005-09-15
2005 Summer Program Posts Record Enrollment
The 2005 ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research was by far the largest and most ambitious in the history of the organization. A total of 719 participants attended the Program--a 13.4% increase over the last summer's enrollment of 634. The 2005 enrollment exceeds the previous all time high registration of 692 established in 2002. In addition to the University of Michigan, workshops were held at the University of North Carolina, Indiana University, Yale University, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
48 courses--lectures and workshops--were offered this year. New courses included the following topics:
- Data Sharing and Dissemination
- Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods
- Aging and Health in Latin America
- Analyzing Developmental Trajectories
- Using Data from the Family and Childhood Experiences Survey
- Introduction to CrimeStat
- Using the American Community Survey
Other recent additions to the Program curriculum include: Spatial Data Analysis; Advanced Game Theory; Statistical Computing Using R/S; and Conducting Field Experiments.
Participants in the Program represented over 200 institutions from a score of nations.
2005-09-01
New Institutions Join ICPSR
ICPSR is pleased to announce that several new institutions have joined the Consortium since September 1, 2005. We extend a sincere welcome to the following new members:
- Christopher Newport University (Virginia Federation)
- Cornell College (Associated Colleges of the Midwest Federation)
- Hartwick College
- NIDI -- Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (Dutch National membership)
- University of Oxford
- University of the West Indies
2005-10-14
2004 General Social Surveys Available
The General Social Surveys, 1972-2004: [Cumulative File] (ICPSR 4295) is now available. This collection is a cumulative dataset that merges all data collected as part of the General Social Surveys from 1972 to the present. The 2004 survey was composed of permanent questions that appear on each previous survey, with rotating questions that appear on two out of every three surveys. In addition, the 2004 GSS topical modules address the following subjects: computer and Internet use, negative life events, religious transformations, daily religious experiences, an experiment on measuring immigration status, altruism, an experiment on measuring alcohol consumption, attitudes towards guns, social networks and group memberships, sexual behavior and genetic testing, and the role of heredity, stress, and violence in the workplace. The new 2004 ISSP module pertained to citizenship and included questions regarding civic and political participation, social welfare policies, efficacy, misanthropy, international organizations, political parties, political corruption, and the working of democracy.
2005-09-02
New SETUPS site features instructional module on 2004 election data
A new Web site hosted by ICPSR and sponsored jointly by ICPSR and the American Political Science Association (APSA) has been launched. Voting Behavior: The 2004 Election is a new instructional module that is available at www.icpsr.umich.edu/SETUPS/. Authored by Charles Prysby and Carmine Scavo, the module offers students the opportunity to analyze an accessible dataset drawn from the 2004 National Election Study (NES) online. The site also offers a discussion of the background to the 2004 election and voting behavior in national elections, and exercises that explain how to analyze the data and understand the results.
Data on the site are accessible for free to APSA departmental members and ICPSR members. Please see the brochure or the Web site for more details.
2005-09-01
ICPSR to Participate in Project to Certify Digital Archives
ICPSR has been selected to serve as a "test subject" in the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) project to develop an audit checklist for certification of trusted digital repositories. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, this project builds on the work of a Task Force consisting of members from the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and the U.S. National Archives and Research Administration (NARA). The Task Force is charged with developing criteria to identify digital repositories capable of reliably storing, migrating, and providing longterm access to digital collections.
RLG has released a draft of the "Audit Checklist for the Certification of Trusted Digital Repositories." This represents the fifth generation of the RLG-NARA group's work and provides best, current practice and thought about the organizational and technical infrastructure required for a digital repository to be considered trustworthy and capable of certification.
Leveraging the RLG-NARA audit tool, the CRL project will test audit criteria and metrics with three test subjects, including:
- Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
- Koninklijke Bibliotheek National Library of the Netherlands, which maintains the digital archive for Elsevier Science Direct Journals
- Portico, an archive for electronic journals incubated within Ithaka Harbors, Inc.
Stanford's LOCKSS system will also participate in this effort, which runs through October 2006.
Comments on the draft are welcomed and are due before mid-January 2006 to Robin Dale, the RLG-NARA Task Force Co-chair and project manager: Robin.Dale@rlg.org (+1-650-691-2238).
2005-09-12
Chicago Neighborhoods Web Site Launched
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICSPR) launched a new Web site dedicated to distributing data and other information from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The Web site provides access to the PHDCN data, allows for enhanced searching and analysis capabilities, and supplies important methodological information about the Project. PHDCN data and documentation will be released incrementally as the processing work is completed by staff at ICPSR's National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. The Web site is part of a larger project, The Collaborative to Enhance & Archive Research Materials From the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, that is jointly directed by ICPSR, the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center, and PHDCN's Scientific Directors. The goal of the Collaborative is to make this large and complex data collection easily accessible to the research community. The Collaborative is supported through the generosity of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
In Memoriam - Eric Monkkonen: 1942--2005
Eric H. Monkkonen, former ICPSR Council member and Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, died on Monday, May 30, 2005, at the age of 62.
Eric served on ICPSR Council from 1986-1990. He was an internationally known American social historian whose comparative approach to urban history included both qualitative and quantitative methods. He taught for 30 years at UCLA where he influenced the lives of many students and conducted influential research on urban finance, local governments, police, crime, and violence, and especially in recent years, murder. Murder in New York City (University of California Press, 2001) is his most recent notable book.
He also served as president of the Urban History Association, and Social Science History Association. He authored five books, edited three, and published over fifty research articles. In addition, he was a principal investigator on five data collections in the ICPSR holdings: Police Departments, Arrests and Crime in the United States, 1860-1920 (ICPSR 7708); Law and Finance in Illinois, 1868-1874 (ICPSR 9680); Census of Turin, Italy, 1705 (with Donatella Balani and Geoffrey Symcox) (ICPSR 3577); Los Angeles Homicides, 1830-2001 (ICPSR 3680); and Homicides in New York City, 1797-1999 [And Various Historical Comparison Sites] (ICPSR 3226).
2005-06-16
ICPSR Welcomes New Members
ICPSR is pleased to announce that several new institutions have joined the Consortium since March 1, 2005. We extend a sincere welcome to the following new members:
Amherst College (joined U-Mass Fed)
Macalester College (joined ACM Fed)
Lee University
Villanova University
2005-06-16
Web Site Unavailable Thurs, July 21, 8-10pm
The ICPSR Web site will be unvailable on Thursday, July 21st from 8-10pm EST, as we will be performing upgrades on our servers. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
2005-07-15
ICPSR Receives Grant for Historical Demography Training
ICPSR has received a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that will allow it to conduct two 4-week specialized training workshops in the field of historical demography during the summers of 2006 and 2007. Led by ICPSR Director Myron Gutmann and a group of the world's leading experts in the field, Longitudinal Analysis of Historical Demographic Data will focus on the use of longitudinal data for the study of complex demographic processes, in both historical and contemporary populations. The first workshop will take place in Ann Arbor from July 24 through August 18, 2006. A complete course schedule and detailed information will be available in the fall of 2005, with registration open in early 2006. Questions should be addressed to Susan Hautaniemi Leonard at hautanie@icpsr.umich.edu.
2005-04-21
IASSIST May 2005 Conference to be Held in Edinburgh, Scotland
The 2005 IASSIST Conference (International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology) is being held in association with IFDO (International Federation of Data Organisations) at the Holyrood Hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland, from Wednesday through Friday, May 25-27, hosted by Edinburgh University Data Library & EDINA.
The conference, which takes place in Europe on a rotating basis, is relevant to data managers, creators, and users, as well as librarians and other information professionals who have responsibility for providing support for the use of research data, especially in the social sciences and other observational disciplines.
The conference will include plenary sessions, parallel sessions, a poster session and workshops. See http://datalib.ed.ac.uk/iassist/programme.shtml for the full program and social events.
The conference will be preceded by optional skills-building workshops on Tuesday, May 24. (Conference attendance is not required to attend the workshops -- see http://datalib.ed.ac.uk/iassist/workshops.shtml for a description.) A weekend in the Scottish Highlands will follow the conference for those wishing to add to their experience of Scotland and network further with delegates.
Please register for the conference in advance, at http://datalib.ed.ac.uk/iassist/registration.shtml or email iassist05@ed.ac.uk with any questions.
2005-04-21
Changes to the ICPSR Web Site
A number of changes have been made to the Web site, as detailed below.
The Download page has been radically revised:
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Rather than listing individual files for download, the Download page takes a package approach based upon various statistical packages. The Download page has changed to a series of steps that begin with choosing a statistical package and a preference for "ready-to-go" files or ASCII data and setup files:
- Documentation Only
- SAS Transport
- SPSS Portable
- Stata System
- ASCII Data + SAS Setup File
- ASCII Data + SPSS Setup File
- ASCII Data + Stata Setup File
- All Files
Please note that packages above will only be listed if they are available for the datasets in the study.
Then the user selects the desired datasets, adds them to the cart, optionally reviews the cart contents, and downloads the files.
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The option of downloading individual files (compressed or uncompressed) will be removed from the main download page. Users will still have the option to download individual files, but we are shifting to a download process that is less focused on files, and more focused on groups of files necessary to perform analyses.
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A browse option has been retained for the documentation files.
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We have abandoned gzip in favor of winzip, which also enabled us to eliminate the double-zipping that occurred previously with the cart.
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We have instituted a new file naming system, that uses lengthier, meaningful file names, as well as Windows-style suffixes.
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We are using language throughout that refers to the Data Cart. We have abandoned the 'saved files' nomenclature, in favor of the more obvious 'cart'.
We're using a tab-driven navigation system for the Download and Description page so that users can easily see what their options are, including links to Online Analysis components and the Social Science Variables Database.
The streamlined Download page enables the user to download without reviewing cart contents, but also gives an indication of how many files the user has in his/her cart, and their relative size.
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The look and feel of the site will be changing in a number of ways.
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The navigation will no longer appear on the top and left. Rather, we have a persistent navigation row atop the page, with the navigation repeated at the bottom of each actual page. This has the advantage of giving us more horizontal space for content and causing navigation to be omnipresent on the screen.
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We have added a visual flag that indicates to the user whether or not s/he is part of an ICPSR Direct institution (based upon IP address). At the top left corner of the page you can see the ICPSR logo, next to a photo of our building. If the word "Direct" appears underneath "ICPSR", then the IP address of that workstation is part of an ICPSR Direct range.
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We have enabled printer-friendly pages throughout most of the Web site.
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The new site features the new ICPSR logo, and uses a brick/rust/orange color scheme, to signify a radical change in the site.
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The new site features a dynamic contact info element, such that each page will list the individual's local contact (OR/DR). The "Need Help" link will list local contact information, provided the user is at an ICPSR Direct IP.
We've made minor changes to the actual navigation links themselves.
Links to the Data Use Tutorial and the Official Representatives' Site now appear on every page.
We've removed the site map.
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We have also added a notification service for use with new registration system. Basically, any user can sign up to be notified when a file s/he has previously downloaded has been updated. We have more notification services in mind (based upon series and subject area), which we hope to unveil later in 2005.
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We have added Stata setup files and "ready-to-go" files (SAS Transport, SPSS Portable, Stata System) files for over 700 studies. All in all, we have added over 18,500 files so that users have more options in terms of statistical packages. This is part of an overall retrofit project; we intend to add a lot more files in the future, until we offer "ready-to-go" files and setup files for SAS, SPSS, and Stata for all of our studies.
In order to help users better understand updates made to ICPSR files, we've also changed our versioning system, specifically the versioning language that appears in our citations.
The three-part distinction, ICPSR Release, ICPSR Edition, and ICPSR Version will no longer be used. The only versioning statement will be version.
The format of the new version statement will be comprised of the designation ICPSR (uppercase) plus the full 5-digit study number (include all preceding zeros), a dash followed by a lowercase v and a number.
Example: ICPSR07341-v1 or ICPSR13324-v2
Versioning will begin when a data collection is first archived and each subsequent update of the data will increment the version number.
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We have made small changes in terms of how online analysis is described throughout the site. We want to prepare for new online analysis utilities, and so we have switched to a generic 'online analysis' link, that points to pages that describe both SDA and Quick Tables, and has room for more options.
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We're creating three new study-level documentation files that are automatically added to the user's cart at download time:
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Separate study description PDFs, including the readme information. These description files contain the information previously attached to the codebook files as front matter.
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File manifest information
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Text bibliography files (related literature)
We are also working on improving our internal systems to better describe study-level files, so that the distinction between study- and dataset-level files will be clear to our users.
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We've implemented a new help system that turns questions into discrete pages, and enables users to search by keyword within questions only, or browse questions by category.
If you have any questions, please contact web-support@icpsr.umich.edu.
2005-03-14
ICPSR Releases Revised Guide to Social Science Data Preparation and Archiving
The third edition (PDF 1.3MB) of the ICPSR Guide focuses on Best Practice Throughout the Data Life Cycle and is the product of a collaboration among ICPSR and several of its projects, specifically:
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections, sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Child Care Bureau
Data Resources Program, sponsored by the United States Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice
Data Sharing for Demographic Research Project, sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Demographic and Behavioral Sciences
Human Subject Protection and Disclosure Risk Analysis Project, sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, sponsored by the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
2005-03-14
National Election Pool (NEP) General Election Exit Polls
ICPSR is pleased to announce the availability of the National Election Pool (NEP) General Election Exit Polls, 2004 (ICPSR 4181) and the National Election Pool Democratic Presidential Preference Primary Exit Polls, 2004 (ICPSR 4183) through FastTrack. The NEP replaced the Voter News Service (VNS) and appointed Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International as the sole provider of exit polls.
Studies on FastTrack are public use files that have not yet been fully processed by our staff. This system provides quick access to the study while the files undergo full processing. An announcement will be made as soon as the fully processed files are available.
Information on how to access this collection, or others that are available via FastTrack, is available on the FastTrack Help page.
2005-01-28
Archivist Janet K. Vavra Retires
Janet K. Vavra, a University of Michigan archivist with a specialization in electronic records, retired from ICPSR on February 28. Janet earned a B.A. from the University of Nebraska and an M.A. from the University of Hawaii in Political Science and began working at ICPSR in 1968. She directed ICPSR's Technical Services and User Support branch and in recent years turned her focus to archival preservation and data security. Janet remains an active member of the Society of American Archivists and throughout her career published several articles on archival topics, including "Confronting Obsolescence: An Archival Lifestyle," in Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives (Research Libraries Group, 2000), and "Preservation: Maintaining Information for the Future," in Of Significance...A Topical Journal of the Association of Public Data Users: Preservation of Public Data (2000).
A central member of the ICPSR staff, Janet was a key contact and mentor for data users at ICPSR's member institutions around the world, assisting countless individuals with research projects and dissertations. As Ann Gray, a former ICPSR Official Representative from Cornell University, remarked, "A hallmark of Janet's work was her emphasis on quality. When we got data from Janet and ICPSR, we knew it would be right!" Acting ICPSR Director Erik Austin adds, "Janet Vavra was a huge contributor to the social sciences over the last three plus decades. Her (mostly) behind-the-scenes work enabled researchers and students to continue their scholarly pursuits despite a dizzying pace of technological change. She helped guide us through the transitions from punch cards to magnetic tapes, to diskettes and cartridge tapes, and finally to file downloading off the Web. Thousands of scientists benefited from Janet's dedication and innovative approach without even knowing how critical her contributions were. Yet hundreds of us do know how important Janet was in making these technological transitions smooth and successful. We salute her for her career, and will miss her."
The ICPSR staff and Council wish Janet the very best in retirement and thank her for her outstanding contributions to the social science research community.
2005-03-08
DSDR Project Director Hired
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Felicia LeClere will join ICPSR and the Michigan Population Studies Center as an Associate Research Scientist and Director of the Data Sharing for Demographic Research project (DSDR). She brings a strong record of research accomplishments coupled with extensive experience in data collection, data processing, and project management. Dr. LeClere will lead the project part time during the summer and will begin a full-time appointment on September 1, 2005.
Dr. Felicia LeClere is currently Associate Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, where she also directs the Laboratory for Social Research. She received her Ph.D. in 1990 from Pennsylvania State University in the fields of demography and rural sociology. Prior to Notre Dame, Dr. LeClere held appointments at the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She has received numerous awards for her achievements, has a strong record in obtaining grants, and has published extensively in her field.
2005-03-03
ICPSR Welcomes New Members
ICPSR is pleased to announce that several new institutions have joined the Consortium since September 1, 2004. We extend a sincere welcome to the following new members:
- Montana State University
- University of Ghent (Belgium)
- Austrian National Membership
- SIDOS (joined Swiss National membership)
- Singapore Management University
- University of Minnesota at Morris
- West Chester University (re-joined Philadelphia Federation)
2005-03-03
ICPSR Revises File Naming System
On January 10, 2005, ICPSR made major changes to the way it identifies data and documentation files. Users who download files should note the following changes:
- All files will include Windows-style suffixes
- Files will have simple text names, rather than acronyms or codes
- Files will include the study number and dataset number (where appropriate) in the file name
- Files will be bundled into study- and dataset-level folders
- File-level information is now recorded in a separate document called the file manifest, instead of within the Readme file.
Our goal is to make the file labels meaningful for our users, and to use a file naming system that does not force users to rename files in order to use them with their preferred statistical packages.
For example, with the old file naming system, if you downloaded datasets 1 and 2 for study 6849, the file names on your desktop looked like this:
+SESSIONID | |-- cb6849.all6m.pdf | |-- README.6849 | |-- da6849.icsbkg | |-- sp6849.ics6m | |-- sa6849.icsbkg | |-- sa6849.ics6m | |-- ug6849.all.pdf | |-- sp6849.icsbkg | |-- da6849.ics6m | +-- cb6849.allbkg.pdf
With the new system, the file names look like this:
+SESSIONID
|
+-- ICPSR6849
|
|-- 06849-manifest.txt
|
|-- 06849-readme.txt
|
|-- DS0001_ICS_Background_Data
| |
| |-- 06849-0001-Data.txt
| |
| |-- 06849-0001-Codebook.pdf
| |
| |-- 06849-0001-User_guide.pdf
| |
| |-- 06849-0001-SAS_setup.sas
| |
| +-- 06849-0001-SPSS_setup.sps
|
+-- DS0002_ICS_6-Month_Review_Data
|
|-- 06849-0002-Data.txt
|
|-- 06849-0002-Codebook.pdf
|
|-- 06849-0002-User_guide.pdf
|
|-- 06849-0002-SAS_setup.sas
|
+-- 06849-0002-SPSS_setup.sps
As a side note, we are dropping the term "data definition statements" and using the term "setup files," which is more commonly used in the social science community.
For users who make use of our batch downloading function, you may wish to read over our notes on Winzip and "saved files" utility.
2005-01-10
Gutmann Appointed to COSSA Presidency
Myron Gutmann, director of the Institute for Social Research's Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and professor of history at the University of Michigan, has been named president of the Consortium of Social Science Associations for a two-year term beginning January 1.
COSSA is an advocacy organization supported by more than 100 professional associations, scientific societies, universities, and research institutions.
"COSSA is a vital organization that does important work to sustain the visibility of and support for social science in the United States," said Gutmann.
"It has played this role for more than twenty years. I'm honored to be able to contribute to its leadership and to do what I can to help support social science over the next two years."
2005-01-11
Data Science Journal Article Reviews Archival Practices
Myron Gutmann and Darrell Donakowski of ICPSR, and their colleagues from the United Kingdom Data Archive, Kevin Schurer and Hilary Beedham, have coauthored an article published in the December 2004 issue of Data Science Journal. Data Science Journal is a peer-reviewed electronic journal that publishes papers on the management of data and databases in science and technology. It is published by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council for Science. The paper, "The Selection, Appraisal, and Retention of Digital Social Science Data," was originally presented by Myron Gutmann and Kevin Schurer at a December 2003 workshop held at the Biblioteca Nacional in Lisbon, Portugal.
The article reviews the processes used by ICPSR and the UK Data Archive to illustrate how data are selected for archiving, how they are appraised, and what steps are required to retain the usefulness of the data for future use. It also discusses new initiatives aimed at encouraging the long-term preservation of digital resources.
For more information, visit the Data Science Journal Web site: http://www.datasciencejournal.org/.
2005-01-21
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