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Data Management for Wits: International Repositories and Data Stores

The following is general advice,data varies hugely between types of research and projects.

Do this First : Repository Register

RE3data.org"Registry of research data repositories"

A repository of repositories

 

Because librarians are like that , here is a repository of repositories of repositories .

If you want to search for a variable specifically standard  development,demographic or social science look no further.In their  own words "re3data.org is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines.... It is  funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Project partners are:the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,the Library and Information Services department (LIS) of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences,the KIT Library at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Libraries of the Purdue University.The German partners are actively involved in the German Initiative for Network Information (DINI) 

Also all formal repositories of research data and most data archives are represented. It important to use Re3 FIRST. This is because you will find that many datasets are replicated in many repositories around the world in various formats. In searches this results in duplicates findings. 

International Repositories

Australian National Data  Service(ANDS)

In their own words/website, they claim that "Research Data Australia is the data discovery service of the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). ANDS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program."

The Information Services Division : National Health Services Scotland

In their own words/website, they claim that "ISD aims to proactively publish data for which there is a wide demand so that it is freely available to all. ISD also releases data through bespoke information products, commonly via the Scottish Health Information Service, to NHS and partner organizations. Should you require information that requires bespoke new analysis of health and care data held in our national databases this can be requested via our Information Request Service."

Latin American Open Data Initiative

In their own words/website, they claim that "The Latin American Open Data Initiative (ILDA) is conceived as a multi-stakeholder project to foster research,use, and appropriateness of open data in Latin America.ILDA carries out three main activities: support the development of open data policies; make aware and train civil servants in open government and open data, and develop of studies and fostering of use and appropriateness of open data by different social actors."

UK Data Archive

The UK's largest collection of digital research data in the social sciences and humanities.

Bureau of Labor Statistical Information

Statistical Sites on the World Wide Web.

US.National Library Medicine

"NIH Data Sharing Repositories  Most accept submissions of appropriate data from NIH-funded investigators (and others), but some restrict data submission to only those researchers involved in a specific research  Links are provided to information about submitting data to and accessing data from the listed repositories. Additional information about the repositories and points-of-contact for further information or inquiries can be found on the websites of the individual repositories. Are we missing a data sharing repository? Contact us."

City data.com and Us. National Library medicine  These are both great places to put data and to search for data if your field is biology or zoology and any health science

Ways to search databases for variables of interest

Data Available for Online analysis

The links below lead to data that can be analyzed online.They are mainly American and European.For African and other developing countries look at  the getting local data tab:

This allows online univariate summary statistics (e.g., mean, frequency counts).Registered users REMEMBER THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO CITE ,can also create cross-tabulations that can be downloaded in MSExcel format,and perform regression analysis (registration required).Registered users who are interested in performing more sophisticated multivariate analysis can create and download customized data sets that can be imported into a variety of statistical packages (e.g., SPSS, SAS, STATA).

Specific data stores

General Interest

  • Data on the Net: Links to sites of numeric social science statistical data,data cataloguers,data libraries,social science gateways,etc.Provided by University of California,San Diego.
  • Research Resources for the Social SciencesOrganized into 18 categories including general resources,reference materials,data archives,and various social sciences disciplines.

University Data Libraries

International

  • CASS CASS (Centre for Applied Social Surveys),an ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council) Resource Centre run jointly by SCPR (Social & Community Planning Research) and the University of Southampton with the University of Surrey.Offers a survey Question Bank for use by social scientists and social researchers as well as links to relevant sites.
  • CESSDA Home page of CESSDA (Council of European Social Science Data Archives).Includes access to cataloguers of member organizations and a clickable map of Social Science Data Archives all over the world.
  • Qualidata Site for information on this Archival Resource Centre of ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council) qualitative data.
  • Social Science Data Archives From the Australian National University.

Natural Sciences

  • NOAA Research Home PageNOAA Research,conducted primarily through the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research,drives the NOAA environmental products and services that protect life and property and promote sustainable economic growth.Research,conducted by in-house laboratories and by extramural programs, focuses on enhancing our understanding of environmental phenomena such as tornadoes, hurricanes, climate variability,solar flares,changes in the ozone,El Nino/La Nina events,fisheries productivity,ocean currents,deep sea thermal vents, and coastal ecosystem health.
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN): is a center within the Earth Institute at Columbia University.CIESIN works at the intersection of the social, natural, and information sciences, and specializes in online data and information management, spatial data integration and training, and interdisciplinary research related to human interactions in the environment.
  • NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE):has nine discipline-specific data centers that process, archive, document, and distribute data from NASA's Earth-observing satellites and field measurement programs.
  • NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs):The DAAC Alliance is the data management and user services arm of NASA's EOSDIS. The data centers process, archive, document, and distribute data from NASA's past and current Earth-observing satellites and field measurement programs. Each center serves a specific Earth science discipline.
  • The Federation of Earth Science Information Partnersmaintains over 3,500 Earth Science datasets. Everyone is available to scientists, educators, policy makers, students, and the general public. The vast majority of the data is free.
  •  British Geological Survey:Information and Data page has links to data cataloguers and organizations.