Canada

SPARC Digital Repositories meeting includes session on open data

By Chuck

November 10, 2010

Kathleen Shearer of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries organized and chaired a panel on Open Data was held at the SPARC Digital Repositories meeting on November 8, 2010. IASSIST members Gail Steinhart and Chuck Humphrey were two of the three members on this panel. Kevin Ashley, Director of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), was the third. It has been two years since this group last met and the attendance was said to have doubled between meetings (looked like there were around 150 people present.

More on the Canadian Long Form Census

By bo@uoguelph.ca

October 6, 2010

This is a truly fascinating set of events unfurling in Canada. I thought I would add a bit (in too many words) for those of you who don’t have the pleasure of Canadian media outlets. J Parliament recently resumed and there have been a number of significant issues, like abolishing the LONG Gun Registry, G8/G20 spending and a new Governor General who happens to be a former University President. Still, the LONG form census continues to make headlines – do you notice a theme around abolishing programs with the word LONG in them?

IASSIST letter to Canadian Government on loss of 2011 Census long form

By robin

October 5, 2010

Industry Canada Office of the Honourable Tony Clement Minister of Industry C.D. Howe Building 235 Queen Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0H5 25 July 2010 Dear Minister Clement We write on behalf of the International Association of Social Science Information Services and Technology. IASSIST is an international organization of professionals working in and with information technology and data services to support research and teaching in the social sciences. Its 300 members are from a variety of workplaces, including data archives, statistical agencies, research centers, libraries, academic departments, government departments, and non-profit organizations.

CAPDU - Canadian Census

By bo@uoguelph.ca

July 16, 2010

More info on what the response has been in Canada is available here: http://capdu.wordpress.com/ Very interesting to watch this unfold if you are interested in data or interested in how these community responses develop.

Canadian census - no more long form

By bo@uoguelph.ca

June 30, 2010

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 aware of any consultation with the research community.