Blogs

It appears that the Federal Government has decided to no longer have the mandatory long form in the upcoming census (2011).  This is the list of detailed questions filled out by about 20% of households.  It will be replaced with another voluntary survey.   This has many potential implications, especially for those using the census 'longitudinally'.   It may have some positive spinoffs, since the replacement has a potentially larger sample size.   The disturbing part is that we are not more...

The International Household Survey Network (IHSN) just released a new publication on “Principles and Good Practice for Preserving Data”. This document produced by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social research (ICPSR) provides basic guidance for managers in statistical agencies who are responsible for preserving data using the principles and good practice defined by the digital preservation community. more...

I am just attending CANHEIT and saw a presentation on  http://islandora.ca .  I thought this was a really neat project and I really like their appliance approach to distributing this.    In a way I thought  what they are building  touched on some of the vision presented by Pascal at http://ciser.cornell.edu/IASSIST/program/d3.shtm .

Welcome to the new (May, 2010) IASSIST website, based on Drupal open source technology and hosted by LIS-host. The new logo and website artwork was commissioned by the Publications Chair, Walter Piovesan, and done by Josh Laidlaw, from British Columbia.

Harrison Dekker, from University of California-Berkeley, is our 'drupal guru' who has done the lion's share of the work, porting over the old content and setting up the new format. more...

Announcement of Workshop: Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/courses/0041 August 9-13, 2010 Ann Arbor Michigan

Instructors: Chuck Humphrey, Head of the Data Library, University of Alberta Jim Jacobs, Data Services Librarian Emeritus, University of California San Diego

In the March 27, 2010 issue of Science News, this article talks about how "widespread misuse of statistical methods makes science more like a crapshoot". The problem appears to be based in the misunderstanding and misuse of the concept of statistical significance. more...

Congratulations to IASSIST members Kevin Schürer and Matthew Woollard!

Professor Schürer has announced he'll be leaving the directorship of the UK Data Archive in order to take up a new post at the University of Leicester as Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research later this year.

Dr. Woollard, currently Associate Director and Head of Digital Preservation and Systems, will become Director-Designate from the beginning of March 2010. more...

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ) volume 32 2008 contains a collection of the 1, 2, 3, and 4 issues into a single issue for 2008. more...

The US Open Government Directive, released on December 8, 2009, instructs all federal agencies to provide high-value information to the public online in open, accessible, machine-readable formats. more...

From the DDI Directions Newsletter: more...