UK Data Service webinar recording

To help you get the most from the UK Data Service we run a series of core webinars which introduce different aspects of the Service and explain our key datasets. The next series of webinars start on 24 April 2018 but you can access our recordings at any time on our YouTube channel.

Recordings are available on the following topics:

Introduction to the UK Data Service

The UK Data Service holds the UK’s largest collection of research data. This recording is for anyone with an interest in social research who wants to hear about the vast array of resources we offer. You will learn about the different types of quantitative and qualitative data we hold, how to find those data collections using our online resource discovery tools, and how to register to access datasets in a number of different formats.

Finding and accessing data in the UK Data Service

This recording is intended for anyone who wants to hear about finding data from the UK Data Service. You will be given a practical overview of the tools that the service provides, particularly our Discover tool to help you to make the most of your data searches. We will discuss best approaches to searching data and how to use the search tool to narrow down search results.

Key issues in reusing data

You will hear about the key issues in secondary analysis as a method. The introductory session will briefly cover the pros and cons of reusing data and the importance of learning about the origins of your data. Quantitative and qualitative secondary analysis will be discussed with examples and issues of context, sampling and ethics will be raised.

Data management basics

This recording is intended for anyone who wants to learn about data management. Data management is essential to make sure that well organised, well documented, high quality and shareable research data result from your research project. This webinar provides an overview of how to manage, document, store and safeguard research data well and how to plan and implement good data management in research projects, with a view to optimising data sharing.

Key data recordings:

UK and cross-national surveys

This recording is intended for anyone who wants to learn about the key survey datasets available from the UK Data Service which provide snapshots of the UK or that allow comparisons to be made across countries. We provide access to a wide range of survey series such as the British Social Attitudes Survey, the Labour Force Survey and the Health Survey for England.

Longitudinal surveys

This recording is intended for anyone who wants to learn about the wide range of longitudinal datasets available via the UK Data Service. The Service provides access to various types of longitudinal data. One of these are the British Birth Cohort Studies (e.g. the National Child Development Study 1958 and The Millennium Cohort Study) which follow the same group of children born in a specific year throughout their lives, tracking changes and unravelling the reasons behind them.

Census data

This recording is an introduction to Census data available from the UK Data Service. We provide access to Census data in a range of formats including counts about characteristics of people and households in areas (aggregate data), data about commuter and migration movements between areas (flow data), anonymised samples of records for flexible use (microdata) and boundary data to map them.

Qualitative data

This recording is intended for anyone who wants to learn about the qualitative or mixed-methods data available from the UK Data Service. The UK Data Service provides access to a range of qualitative and mixed-methods data including Peter Townsend’s Last Refuge and Neighbourhood Boundaries, Social Disorganisation and Social Exclusion. These collections cover many topics and most of them can be downloaded after a short registration.

Business data

This recording is an introduction to Office for National Statistics (ONS) business data available from the UK Data Service, such as the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. The webinar includes an overview of the business survey areas covered (e.g. earnings and skills) and the data available. Examples of research that have used business microdata will be presented. As the business data are potentially identifiable, they must be accessed through the Secure Lab.

We also provide webinars on more specialised topics and these recordings can also be found on our YouTube channel.

Slides are available on our past events pages.

View all of our current events

NOTE: taken from an email to the list: UKDATASERVICE@jiscmail.ac.uk, 6 Feb 2018

UK Data Service video: 5 Safes for reuse of confidential and sensitive data

Safes animation

The UK Data Service are happy to announce the release of our new short video describing the principles for providing safe and secure access to confidential and sensitive microdata. Using the 5 Safes enables researchers to carry out work that would not usually be possible with anonymised data - a real advantage for researchers, maximising the potential of the data.

The UK Data Service has provided such access for almost five years via its Secure Lab using the 5 Safes framework, a set of five simple protocols that provide complete assurance for data owners and researchers:

·         safe data

·         safe projects

·         safe people

·         safe settings

·         safe outputs

These principles support international best practice for safely using secure data and have been adopted by a range of other secure labs, the Administrative Data Research Network, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK's Office for National Statistics, where the concept actually originated. Implementing the 5 Safes framework at the UK Data Service has allowed us to design, test and fully implement designated Approved and Accredited Researcher pathways for handling and accessing sensitive data; access pathways used by both UK government and the ESRC. Researchers wishing to use confidential and sensitive microdata attend the Safe User of Research data Environments (SURE) training course delivered by one of these four secure access data providers.

Scientific Data approves UK Data Service as recommended data depository

The UK Data Service is delighted to be the first UK-based social science repository to be listed as a recommended repository by Scientific Data.

Scientific Data, the open-access data journal of Nature Publishing Group, publishes the Data Descriptor article type and recommends that datasets accompanying manuscripts be deposited in established and trusted repositories, such as the UK Data Service ReShare. This ensures that these datasets are stably preserved for the longer-term, thoroughly peer-reviewed, and will be easily accessible to the research community after publication.

Using the UK Data Service’s ReShare repository, researchers can easily upload data collections in the social sciences, humanities and medical research, describe these collections and select the access conditions and licences that are best suited to their data. Researchers can then decide whether to publish these data either as fully open data or as safeguarded data that are made available under the UK Data Service’s End User Licence. Safeguarded data may be selected when anonymised data have been collected from human participants (via surveys or interviews), but where there is a risk of participant de-identification resulting from potential linkage to other data. The ReShare repository has inbuilt safeguards, such as requiring registration in order to access safeguarded datasets. This allows social science data to be shared and made available for research as openly as possible. The UK Data Service also reviews these data before their release, so researchers can be confident that they meet with the necessary ethical and legal requirements.

The UK Data Service fully supports the concept of scientific transparency and is increasingly working with journals to help support their policies. The collaboration with Scientific Data gives social science and humanities researchers the opportunity to increase the discoverability of their data via submission of a Data Descriptor, whilst maintaining UK Data Service’s safeguarding of sensitive data.

See: http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/news-and-events/newsitem/?id=4046 

UK Data Service releases guidelines for data purchase

Data purchase – guidelines for researchers

The UK Data Service has produced guidelines for researchers who are considering purchasing data for research.

These guidelines provide a set of generic guiding principles and questions to pose when planning data purchases. Prepared by the UK Data Service team, whose experts advise depositors and help researchers plan pathways to data access, the aim of these guidelines is to help researchers plan their data access requirements more effectively and to reduce the amount of time spent on legal and contractual issues. By following the guidelines, researchers will also ensure that they comply with the relevant research data policies and accountability, especially for ESRC-funded research.

The guidelines were initially developed to support the ESRC's Big Data Network Phase 2 Business and Local Government Data Research Centres, but they are now being released to the wider data research community for the benefit of all researchers.

Data Purchase Guidelines

Collections Development Selection and Appraisal Criteria

Collections Development Policy

UK Data Service launches new Impact Blog

UK Data Service launches new Impact Blog

We’re delighted to announce the launch of the UK Data Service blog: The Data Impact Blog, which is a hub for academics, communities, policy-makers, government and anyone interested in maximising the impact of social, population and economic data in research and policy.

The Data Impact Blog aims to encourage debate and act as a forum to share best practice, keeping the data impact community up to date with news, events and the latest data-driven impactful research and policy making.

The blog also demonstrates the impact of the UK Data Service in widening access to data, with posts on the benefits of the use of data we hold. Read Matthew Woollard’s Welcome Blog. Here, the Director of the UK Data Service presents two very different examples of how the Service develops its impact.

See, among other blog posts, what our in-house experts and guest contributors have to say on open data and the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Innovation Fund projects, a range of exciting developments which include the creation of an open data and crowdsourcing project to generate innovative apps; a library of interactive tools to allow users/owners to create their own infographics; a tool designed to take the mystery out of how confidential data are anonymised and an open-source census data extraction and visualisation tool. Louise Corti, Associate Director of the UK Data Service, examines these four exciting projects - we will be publishing regular blog updates so watch this space and contribute to the discussion!

Resources

UK DATA Service Data Impact Blog