UK Databytes, Issue 35 - ESDS

www.esds.ac.uk December 2009 - February 2010 Number 35
It is that season
again when
we look back over the closing
year and ahead to the next, which
also marks the start of the second
decade of the millennium.
The future
Looking ahead to 2010, there will
be the usual full programme of
workshops and user meetings.
ESDS will also be developing
further web-based resources for
researchers and data managers,
and behind the scenes there will
be significant redevelopment of
systems. The most important event
for ESDS will be the mid-term
review by ESRC and JISC, which
will assess the impact of ESDS as
a service over the last five years
and, towards the end of 2010, will
make recommendations for the
future funding of the service.
Advisory Committee
We also wish to thank all the
hard working members of the
ESDS Advisory Committee for
their contribution during 2009.
Some members travel great
The newsletter of the Economic and Social Data Service
UK Databytes
Season’s Greetings
ESDS is now over seven years
old and has matured into the
service delivering social science
and economic data in the UK and
it seems fitting at the end of 2009
to thank all our 42,000 registered
distances to attend meetings and
their expertise is greatly
appreciated. Under the
chairmanship of Audrey Brown,
the Committee has met twice
during the year and on both
occasions has provided valuable
commentary on ESDS current and
future activities. The next meeting
will take place in London on 11
February 2010 when it is
expected that a draft mid-term
review evaluation report will be
considered.
ESDS Annual Report
2008-2009
The Annual Report for
2008-2009 has just
been published and
is available both
as a PDF
document and
in print form. As
in previous years,
users for their continued support.
So to all our users may we wish
you a very happy Christmas and
please be assured ESDS will not
rest on its laurels in the coming
year.
the publication carries case
studies and general reports from
each of the specialist ESDS
services, plus a statistical report
for the whole of ESDS.
Highlights of 2008-2009 include
a significant increase in the
number of datasets delivered to
users, which exceeded 50,000 for
the first time, and a trebling of
longitudinal datasets added to the
ESDS collection and processed.
www.esds.ac.uk

UK Databytes December 2009 - February 2010
ESDS Government Research Conference: Crime, Safety and Community
The ESDS Government annual research
conference, held in November 2009 at the
British Academy London, focused on the
topic of Crime, Safety and Community,
showcasing recent research using ESDS
datasets. Professor Paul Wiles, Chief
Scientific Advisor to the Home Office,
chaired the one-day conference.
Two papers, drawing on the Offenders
Cohort Index, looked at offending behaviour:
Professor Brian Francis addressed
specialisation and escalation among
offenders, while Professor Keith Soothill
explored the risk of offending among exoffenders
and non-offenders, and whether
and/or when ex-offenders should be treated
like non-offenders.
Helen Chester drew on the British Crime
Survey (BCS) to explore property crime
using multi-level modelling and found that
household characteristics explained more of
the variation in property crime victimisation
than area-level characteristics. However, a
number of important issues appeared to
affect this assessment, namely the way that
‘area of residence’ was defined, the
sampling strategy of the BCS, and the
selection of variables included in the
models. These issues were discussed,
together with recommendations for further
research, policy and practice.
Professor Tim Hope used the BCS and the
Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey to
explore the distribution of crime victimisation
Pioneers of Qualitative Research
This summer ESDS Qualidata launched
its Pioneers of Qualitative Research web
pages. Pioneers introduces and will provide
access to a series of fascinating life history
interviews conducted in the last ten years by
the oral historian Paul Thompson with over
twenty pioneering social researchers,
including Peter Townsend, Ray Pahl and
Dennis Marsden.
These interviews and the related sections
of the web site provide insight into the lives,
intellectual development, major influences
and research projects of a set of innovative
and influential social researchers from the
1960s to the 1980s. The views of the
interviewees on the development of their
methodological approaches over the course
of their academic lives are of particular
value. Freely available to access, these
extracts from the interviews include: audio
clips; background information on the
pioneers, such as key publications; and the
datasets available from the ESDS web site.
The complete interview transcript and audio
file are also available for download.
This project emerged from the initial goal
of Qualidata (the forerunner of ESDS
Qualidata), following its 1995 creation in the
Department of Sociology at the University of
Essex, to find surviving data from pioneering
examples of social research. These classic
studies, most less than fifty years old, were
already disappearing. Qualidata was able to
rescue a number of these studies and
ensure that they were deposited at the UK
Data Archive and other UK research
archives. Among these classic pioneering
studies are Dennis Marsden’s Mothers
Alone (SN 5072) and Peter Townsend’s The
Last Refugee (SN 4750), both discussed in
detail in their interviews with Paul
Thompson.
www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/pioneers/
New Head of IDP at the UK Data Archive
The UK Data Archive is delighted to
announce the appointment of John
Shepherdson to the senior position of Head
of Information
Development and
Programming
(IDP).
John takes up his new role at the Archive
on 4 January 2010. He will be a member of
the Archive’s senior Policy Group and will
lead the strategic development of the
Archive’s technical infrastructure and be
responsible for the applications which make
data available from the ESDS web site.
in the population and his results suggest that
delivering crime prevention to the general
population as a whole, rather than targeting
chronic victims, would produce better results.
Dr Emily Gray reported on her work using
the BCS to look at a new way of measuring
the fear of crime, which differentiates
between destructive worry that erodes
quality of life and constructive worry that
motivates vigilance and routine precaution.
The final paper, which looked into who
buys stolen goods, was given by Dr Mike
Sutton who used the BCS and the
Offending, Crime and Justice Survey as
context for his qualitative work with thieves
and fences. The research identified six
market types for stolen goods and the paper
discussed the need for national crime
surveys to assess which of the six markets
play major roles in facilitating theft.
www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2009-11-
18/index.html
ESDS International
for parliamentarians
On 25 November 2009 ESDS International
held two training courses for parliamentarians
at Portcullis House in Westminster: a morning
session for statisticians of the House of
Commons library and an afternoon session for
those of the House of Lords . This event was
organised jointly by ESDS staff from Mimas,
Manchester and the UK Data Archive,
Colchester. Presentations were given by Celia
Russell and Jo Wathan (Mimas) and Beate
Lichtwardt and Birgit Austin (UK Data Archive)
on international macro, international micro,
government, and longitudinal data resources
and possible applications. They were followed
by hands-on sessions which were
unfortunately cut short by Prime Minister’s
Questions. Huge interest was also expressed
in accessing research publications based on
the data. ESDS International has a database
of over 1,800 publications citing the data.
Promoting and supporting the use of social

UK Databytes December 2009 - February 2010
ESDS International
Annual Conference:
Real Data – Real World
The ESDS International annual
conference was held on 30 November 2009
at the Institute of Materials in London, on
the theme of ‘Real Data – Real World’. The
event was well attended with participants
attracted by a packed programme that had a
strong focus on data providers from intergovernmental
organisations.
During the opening data provider session,
participants heard about: new content and
data dissemination methods from the
International Monetary Fund; mapping
development data from the World Bank;
challenges facing International Energy
Agency statisticians; data citation and
referencing methods from the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and
Development; a new database from the
United Nations Industrial Development
Organisation. They also learned about the
longitudinal study of childhood poverty from
science data in research and teaching
the Young Lives international research
project. This session ended with a lively
panel discussion, giving participants the
opportunity to ask questions of the data
providers.
The first session after lunch focused on
international data in academic research and
took the form of a ‘Pecha Kucha’ with each
speaker presenting 20 slides, each
displayed for 20 seconds. It was a fast
moving and fascinating session with
researchers speaking on topics such as:
‘Twin Deficits: New Evidence from Arab
World’; ‘Financial Risks and Banking Sector
New frameworks for measuring
the progress of nations
The Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD)
World Forum on ‘Statistics, Knowledge and
Policy’ took place in Busan, Korea on 27-30
October. Organised in co-operation with the
European Commission, the United Nations
and World Bank, the conference marks a
major milestone in the OECD’s Global Project
which aims to develop better measurements
of national and regional progress.
Keynote speaker Joe Stiglitz argued
passionately that the global financial crisis
has highlighted the inadequacy of current
measures of economic performance, in
particular those based on Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). The Stiglitz Commission
recently proposed a major new system for
measuring societal well-being which
integrates indicators of economic,
environmental, and social sustainability. The
subsequent debate on how national progress
should be evaluated and how new
measurement systems can be integrated into
current frameworks provided the central
themes of the conference.
Over 2,000 people from 130 countries
attended the event, including Celia Russell
and Paul Murphy of ESDS International,
whose research examining the academic use
of cross-national data was published by the
OECD as a background paper to the
conference.
oecdworldforum2009.org/
Performance’; and ‘Financial Dollarization
and European Union Membership’.
A session on ‘International Collaboration’
concluded the day and included a
presentation on opening up access to and
sharing of data resources to help
understand and resolve complex challenges
of the modern world.
A full report on the day, as well as slides,
abstracts, audio and video clips will be
made available on the event web page:
www.esds.ac.uk/international/news/conf2009
.asp
Workshop in Kent
Following the event ‘ESDS — what’s in it
for librarians?’ at the Royal Statistical
Society on 13 February 2009, ESDS
received an invitation from a participating
Academic Liaison Librarian to give a handson
workshop for academic staff at the
University of Kent before the new academic
year started. It was anticipated that this
would be of interest to staff in various
subject disciplines. Indeed the subject
specialisms of the workshop participants
held at the University of Kent on 8
September 2009 ranged from biosciences,
medicine and health sciences to modern
languages, economics, sociology,
archaeology, history, theology and
philosophy.
The workshop focused on which data and
services are available via ESDS, and how
to find, access and use the various
resources. The online analysis tools Nesstar
and Beyond 20/20 played a special role in
the live demonstrations and were followed
with huge interest. This provided the perfect
preparation for the final hands-on session
where the participants could explore the
ESDS web site and online systems,
searching for resources related to their
specific areas of
interest and finding
answers to their
own questions.

The work of the Research
Data Management and Support Services
(RDMSS) team at the UK Data Archive has
recently been bolstered by the award of two
new grants to work on bespoke data
management support and training for
researchers. The team currently supports
ESRC grant applicants and award holders
on behalf of the ESDS and the Rural
Economy and Land Use Data Support
Service (RELU-DSS).
The first grant is supported by JISC under
the Data Management Infrastructure
Programme which aims to provide the UK
Higher Education sector with insights and
pilot solutions for managing research data
within or across institutions. The project,
which runs for 15 months from 1 January
2010, will work with data-rich research
‘hubs’, such as ESRC Centres and
Programmes, by assisting with the planning
and implementation of data management
procedures. The project will also address
particular areas of research: high-value data
resources, including non-reproducible and
unique data; complex data, such as
ethnographical or anthropological data; and
data that have legal and ethical sharing
issues, for example legal and political data.
The second award is part of the fourth
round of the Researcher Development
Initiative (RDI) aimed at supporting a range
of advanced and specialised training and
development activities for researchers. The
project runs for 18 months from 1 April 2010
and will provide a programme of focused
training for researchers and researcher
support staff on key managing and sharing
data issues in the social sciences. Topics
covered will include: hands-on, practical
training applied to different audiences; case
studies based on ESRC studies archived at
the UK Data Archive; user experiences,
feedback and discussions during workshops
for continuous, interactive development of
workshop materials; and developing online
materials based on the workshops. The
project’s wider aim is to make the acquisition
of data management and sharing skills an
integral component of UK postgraduate
training for social scientists.
Principal Investigator, Louise Corti, and
her co-investigators Veerle Van den Eynden
and Libby Bishop, are delighted that both
funders have recognised the value of
targeted data management support and
capacity building in managing and sharing
data. The team views these skills as part of
Economic and Social Data Service, UK Data Archive, University of Essex,
Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK
Email: publicity@esds.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 1206 872319/873159 Fax: +44 (0) 1206 872003
ISSN 1474-9149 (print) ISSN 1755-8239 (online)
UK Databytes December 2009 - February 2010
Christmas comes early for RDMSS at
the UK Data Archive
Data for undergraduate political science courses
Since its inception, a key theme for the
ESDS has been to provide teaching
resources based on its data collection. The
service has produced a growing number of
teaching datasets, with usage logs
indicating that these resources are used
widely in the UK higher education sector.
ESDS is keen to encourage researchers
and teachers to deposit teaching material.
The latest contribution takes the form of
three ‘Data for Undergraduate Political
Science Courses’ datasets, deposited by Dr
Sean Carey and Dr Katharine Adeney, both
from the University of Sheffield. Each
dataset is an abridged and enhanced
Teaching and learning resources
ESDS has recently updated and
enhanced its teaching and learning pages.
They now include a new page on ‘Research
version of the larger standard dataset
available via the ESDS and focuses on a
recent attitudinal survey. The three surveys
are: The British Social Attitudes Survey,
2005; The British Election Study, 2005; and
Eurobarometer 64.2, 2005.
These teaching datasets were produced
under an ESRC award and accompany an
article produced by Carey and Adeney,
‘Contextualising the teaching of statistics in
political science’, published in the journal
Politics.
www.esds.ac.uk/news/newsdetail.asp?id
=2373
Methods at ESDS’ which showcases some
of the key resources to support the teaching
of quantitative methods.
www.esds.ac.uk/resources/learning.asp
the portfolio of essential life-long skills that
every researcher should possess – in
addition to the usual proficiency in data
collection methods and data analysis. The
team passionately believes that these skills
should become part of standard best
practice in research.
Two new staff will be appointed for the
posts which will strengthen the training and
outreach capacity of the RDMSS team at
Essex.
www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/newsdetail
.asp?id=2372
Forthcoming events
8 January 2010: Census data workshop:
Using Migration Data and the ONS
Longitudinal Study, University of Cardiff
20 January 2010: Timescapes Conference:
the Craft of Qualitative Longitudinal
Research, Cardiff School of Social Sciences
22 January 2010: Exploring Population and
Health Trends – the ONS Longitudinal
Study, University of Surrey
3 February 2010: Census data workshop:
Changing Geography Masterclass,
University of Southampton
15-16 February 2010: Advanced Methods
for Small Area Estimation, University of
Southampton
11-17 March 2010: 5-day intensive training
in Biographic-Narrative-Interpretive Method,
Narrative Interview and Interpretation,
London
12-20 March 2010: ESRC Festival of Social
Science 2010, various venues
15 March 2010: Census workshop:
Overview of Census Data Resources,
University of Essex, Colchester
12-13 April 2010: JISC Conference 2010,
London
1-4 June 2010: IASSIST 2010: Social Data
and Social Networking: Connecting Social
Science Communities across the Globe,
New York
5-8 July 2010: Research Methods Festival
2010, Oxford