We present an edited transcript of the keynote plenary speech Matthew Woollard, Director of the UK Data Service and the UK Data Archive, gave at the annual IASSIST Conference in Bergen on 1 June 2016. IASSIST is an international organisation of professionals working in and with information technology and data services to support research and teaching in the social sciences.
We’ve received some excellent and topical applications from a range of disciplinary and subject areas, and from universities across the UK.
Dr Kathryn Simpson, UK Data Service Research Associate at the University of Manchester, discusses the demand for reliable data to examine the broad ranging issues in the EU referendum debate. Find the data you need at the UK Data Service.
Kristine Briones, Research Assistant at Young Lives discusses the new release of “constructed files” of all four of rounds of data which features about 200 variables selected from the Young Lives household and child surveys.
James Scott, Senior Support Officer at the UK Data Service’s Secure Lab, updates us on the new Safe Use of Research data Environments training (SURE) which has been designed for new users of Secure Lab and other Research Data Centres.
Matthew Woollard and Louise Corti provide an update on how the UK Data Service has supported the development of the new Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) Data Service.
During the past two months Susan Noble and Celia Russell form the UK Data Service international data team based at Jisc have taken part in a couple of important international events: Statistical Information System Collaboration Community (SIS-CC) Annual Workshop, Paris, 11th – 15th April 2016 and the IASSIST 2016 Conference, Bergen, 31st May – 3rd June 2016
As part of a suite of articles on big data, the UK Data Service’s Louise Corti, Associate Director for Collections Development and Producer Relations, and Sharon Bolton, Data Curation Manager, write about the effective curation of big data and how to promote its re-use.
Anne Solon, data manager for Young Lives, whose role involves working with Young Lives research partners to coordinate the complete survey cycle and coordinating the processes of survey design, piloting, training of field staff, data collection, data entry and data management, discusses adding value to survey data to support analysis.