News and Announcements

Cellphones Challenge Poll Sampling

By jajacobs

December 11, 2007

A new report from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) reports preliminary results that have implications for surveys that rely on telephone interviews. (Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January – June 2007, by Stephen J. Blumberg, Ph.D., and Julian V. Luke, Division of Health Interview Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics.) more than one out of every eight American homes (13.6%) had only wireless telephones during the first half of 2007 Adults living in poverty (21.

IASSIST 2008 - Call for Papers!

By robin

October 29, 2007

Technology of Data: Collection, Communication, Access and Preservation The 34th International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST) annual conference will be held at the Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA, May 27-30, 2008. This year’s conference, Technology of Data: Collection, Communication, Access and Preservation, examines the role of technology and tools in various aspects of the data life cycle. The theme of this conference addresses how technology can affect aspects of data stewardship throughout the data lifecycle.

It is official!

By robin

July 27, 2007

For those not familiar with the Web 2.0 numeric data utility Swivel - their mission “is to liberate the world’s data and make it useful so new insights can be discovered and shared”. However, it looks like Swivel are going official! Some NGOs are directly uploading their data into Swivel while in other cases Swivel are gathering data directly from ‘official’ Web sites such as OECD, ILO, UNESCO, WHO - see http://www.

New IQ issue - intro from the editor

By robin

June 15, 2007

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ Vol. 30 issue 2 - 2006) is now available on the web: http://iassistdata.org/publications/iq/iqvol30.html Winter came late in Denmark, but suddenly the situation was normal: snow came and traffic stopped. And now 14 days after spring was here in March. I sat outside in the sun reading articles. Still it’s more difficult to write articles outside, we are waiting for the improvements of the computer screens. However, some people have stayed inside to write articles for the IASSIST Quarterly.

Ontario University Libraries Launch New Data Service

By robin

June 15, 2007

The following press release was posted to the IASSIST listserv by Bo Wandschneider on 11 June: Ottawa: June 11, 2007 The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) is pleased to announce the launch of the Ontario Data Documentation, Extraction Service and Infrastructure Initiative (ODESI), which will provide university researchers with unprecedented access to a significant number of datasets in a web-based data extraction system that will be delivered through the highly successful Scholars’ Portal model.

A really secure data center

By walterg

May 22, 2007

The May 21 issue of Boing Boing describes the InfoBunker, a “Cold War era government command bunker converted into a data center”. I realize that they’re not referring to the same kind of data center we mean, but it was kind of fun to read about a data center that has “a self-sufficient power systems (six days’ worth of diesel fuel; 17,000 gallons of water (for drinking and fire suppression); military-grade NBC air filtration).

OECD will make its 2007 OECD Factbook available on Swivel

By jajacobs

April 17, 2007

OECD and Swivel Invite Curious People to Explore, Discuss and Debate the OECD Factbook OECD profile page at Swivel Let the Feast Begin (Swivel Blog) -jajacobs

Google has acquired Gapminder's Trendalyzer software

By jajacobs

April 1, 2007

A world in motion, The official Google Blog, March 16, 2007, by Marissa Mayer In this regard, we are excited to announce that we have acquired Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software, and we welcome the Trendalyzer team to Google. Trendalyzer generates moving graphics and other novel effects in the display of facts, figures, and statistics in presentations. In its nimble hands, Trendalyzer views development data—such as regional income distribution or trends in global health—as literally a world of opportunity.

European Data Portal (CESSDA)

By robin

March 22, 2007

The Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) redesigned web site is now online at [http://]{.166431011-20032007}www.cessda.org. In addition to the new layout, the site has several new features including the CESSDA Data Portal which allows easy access to the catalogues of member organisations. Other pages provide a central news forum about CESSDA activities, links to official documents, contact details and other relevant information. The site’s content will continue to be developed and will include a members’ section.

Another data-sharing, advanced visualization site

By jajacobs

January 26, 2007

IBM has announced Many Eyes, a site for sharing and commenting on visualizations. As with swivel, users can upload any data set, but the tools for visualizing and graphing the data are much richer. The visualization options include US and World maps, line graphs, stack graphs, bar charts, block histograms, bubble diagrams, scatter plots, network diagrams, pie charts, and treemaps. The site isn’t yet live, but should be very shortly.

Cellphones Challenge Poll Sampling

IASSIST 2008 - Call for Papers!

It is official!

New IQ issue - intro from the editor

Ontario University Libraries Launch New Data Service

A really secure data center

OECD will make its 2007 OECD Factbook available on Swivel

Google has acquired Gapminder's Trendalyzer software

European Data Portal (CESSDA)

Another data-sharing, advanced visualization site

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