Analyze Data on the Web
There are a number of websites that provide the means for users to analyze data at that site. This is especially helpful for users who do not have statistical or other data analysis software packages on their computers. There are several different data analysis interfaces used on these sites. The Data Analysis System (DAS) (sometimes referred to as the Survey Documentation and Analysis system (SDA)) is used mostly on US sites, whereas the NESSTAR system is more popular on sites created in other parts of the world.
These sites are organized by frequency of use for the data needs of Temple University courses.
General Social Survey (GSS)
The General Social Survey (GSS) gathers data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes of the population. This site enables users to analyze the GSS online. Capabilities include frequencies, crosstabulations, comparisons of means, correlation matrices, multiple and logit regressions as well as recoding and computing new variables.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
The ICPSR website provides a Data Analysis System (DAS) which enables users to perform online analysis directly over the Web, without downloading files. This is especially useful for users who do not have statistical software installed on their current workstation. In addition, DAS enables users to create and download subsets of the data files. ICPSR currently offers DAS components for over 110 different studies.
Census: American Factfinder
One of the best resources for U.S. Census data is American Factfinder. Use American FactFinder to view, print, and download statistics about population, housing, industry, and business at every geographic level supported by the Census (from the entire nation down to tract and block levels). FactFinder also helps users find U.S. Census Bureau products; create reference and thematic maps; and search for specific data. For further information:
Census Dataweb
TheDataWeb brings together under one umbrella demographic, economic, environmental, health, (and more) datasets that are usually separated by geography and/or organization. TheDataWeb is the infrastructure for intelligent browsing and accessing data across the Internet. Data sets available through the DataWeb include:
American Community Survey (ACS)
American Housing Survey (AHS)
Current Population Survey (CPS)
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS)
National Center for Health Statistics Mortality-Underlying Cause-of-Death (MORT)
National Center for Health Statistics Natality
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES)
National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)*
National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS)
Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)
Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD)
Roper Center
The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut maintains a large online library of machine-readable datafiles for more than 12,500 public opinion surveys conducted in the United States and around the world. A searchable catalog may be found under "Archived Collections." The collections from Latin America, Mexico, and Japan are especially strong.
WebCASPAR
WebCASPAR is a National Science Foundation database system designed to provide quick and convenient access to a wide range of statistical data focusing on U.S. universities and colleges and their science and engineering resources. WebCASPAR users can specify the statistical data of interest and either view the data through their Web browsers or transfer the data to their own computers as spreadsheets or other data files.
European Sociological Study (ESS)
The European Social Survey (the ESS) is a biennial multi-country survey covering over 20 nations. The first round was fielded in 2002/2003. The questionnaire includes two main sections, each consisting of approximately 120 items; a 'core' module which will remain relatively constant from round to round, plus two or more 'rotating' modules, repeated at intervals. The core module includes questions about media use, social and public trust; political interest and participation; socio-political orientations, governance and efficacy; moral, political and social values; social exclusion, national, ethnic and religious allegiances; well-being, health and security; demographics and socio-economics. The ESS uses the NESSTAR data interface.
COUNCIL OF EUROPEAN SOCIAL SCIENCE DATA ARCHIVES
CESSDA (Council of European Social Science Data Archives) promotes the acquisition, archiving and distribution of electronic data for social science teaching and research in Europe. It encourages the exchange of data and technology and fosters the development of new organisations in sympathy with its aims.
Networked Social Science Tools & Resources (NESSTAR)
Networked Social Science Tools & Resources (NESSTAR) is a web-based program and data infrastructure that facilitates data dissemination and analysis via the Internet. NESSTAR Explorer provides an end user interface for searching, analyzing and downloading data and documentation. This is the home page for the NESSTAR software packages. NESSTAR Publisher provides the tools and resources for making the data and documentation available via the Internet. This page also provides links to online data archives around the world that use the NESSTAR interface.
International Data from the United Nations
The United Nations Common Database (UNCDB) provides selected series from 30 specialized international data sources for all available countries and areas. These sources include UN organizations such as UNICEF and other international organizations such as the ILO, WHO, IMF, OECD and others. Access to the UN proprietary data requires payment for a subscription.