News and Announcements

IASSIST Election Results

By robin

April 5, 2011

[Posted on behalf of Ernie Boyko] Dear IASSIST Members I am pleased to announce the results of the 2011 IASSIST election. The members of the IASSIST Administrative Committee and their terms are as follows: President: Bill Block (2011-2013) Vice- President: Tuomas J. Alaterä (2011-2013) Regional Secretaries for the period 2011-2013 Africa: Lynn Woolfrey (2011-2013) Asia/Pacific Samuel Spencer (2011-2013) Canada Marilyn Andrews (2011-2013) Europe Iris Alfredsson (2011-2013) US San Cannon (2011-2013)

Special Double Issue of IQ on Data Documentation Initiative

By robin

November 28, 2010

Guest Editors Notes - Mary Vardigan and Joachim Wackerow Welcome to a special double issue of the IASSIST Quarterly featuring articles focused on the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI), a metadata standard for the social sciences. We are proud to present these six articles, which explore various projects related to DDI 3 and its enhanced features. The articles draw on previous presentations and papers created in connection with the 2009 “Expert Workshop on Implementation of DDI3 – Advanced Topics” held in Wadern, Germany; the 2009 European DDI Users Group (EDDI) meeting held in Bonn, Germany; and the IASSIST conferences held in Tampere, Finland (2009) and Ithaca, New York, USA (2010).

Special Interest Group on Data Citation (SIGDC) Formed

By mwitt

November 22, 2010

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new Special Interest Group on Data Citation (SIGDC) to promote awareness of data-related research and scholarship through data citation. The group is co-chaired by Mary Vardigan and Michael Witt. Citing data supports the discovery and reuse of data, leading to better science through the validation of results. It also recognizes data as an essential part of the scientific record. SIGDC will share information about its work through the IASSIST list, the IQ, the IASSIST blog, and sessions at the IASSIST conference as well as other venues and meetings.

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 Twitter Account!

By Amy West

September 23, 2010

Your friendly web editors have some news about the IASSIST web presence! We’re happy to report that we now have an official organizational Twitter account: [https://twitter.com/iassistdata. We hope to use this account to facilitate additional communication among IASSIST members. Ways to view this Twitter account: https://www.iassistdata.org/ - Does not require Twitter account follow https://twitter.com/iassistdata (and we’ll follow you in return) subscribe to the RSS feed of https://twitter.com/iassistdata at https://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/156331061.rss - Does not require Twitter account Each of these views will include posts by https://twitter.

World Statistics Day

By k.mcneill

August 18, 2010

“On 20 October, 2010 [20.10.2010] the World will celebrate the first World Statistics Day, to raise awareness of the many achievements of official statistics premised on the core values of service, professionalism, and integrity.” For more information and resources, see: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/wsd/

IASSIST Colleague Named Fulbright Scholar

By jend

July 2, 2010

Michael Witt, assistant professor of library science and interdisciplinary research librarian at Purdue University, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship. He will spend January to May of 2011 at the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Egypt. Michael’s research focuses, in part,on the roles of librarians in data curation and managing electronic resource collections. See this Purdue Libraries June 16 press release for all the details.

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.

IASSIST new look website

By robin

May 26, 2010

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.

Odds Are, It's Wrong Science fails to face the shortcomings of statistics

By walterg

March 18, 2010

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. The comments at the end of the article make interesting reading, as do those at the end of the Slashdot posting on the same article.