ICPSR: Your Source for Social Science Data

What is ICPSR?

ICPSR is the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research. It is located at the University of Michigan. They archive data from research studies conducted all over the country.

How do I access ICPSR?

You must create a personal account in ICPSR to access any of the datasets. Go to the library homepage and click on Search Databases. Then Click on ICPSR. At the ICPSR home page, click on MyData Login/Create Account located on the top right of the screen. If you forget your password, ICPSR can send it to you. Buley Library does not have any access to that password and cannot reset it for you.

What is in ICPSR?

ICPSR contains numeric raw data from surveys and studies. For example, a researcher at one university may conduct a study using a questionnaire containing hundreds of questions that is completed by thousands of respondents. The researcher, who is focusing on a particular research question, may have only used the data from some of those questions. The results of the questionnaires are deposited at ICPSR, where they are now known as a dataset, and other researchers can now use the same data to study different research topics that the first researcher didn't choose to focus on.

Can I find articles in ICPSR?

Yes and no. ICPSR is primarily a repository of raw quantitative data that you must manipulate using statistical software. ICPSR does have a Bibliography of Data Related Research. This is a searchable bibliography of research articles that used data from one of ICPSR's datasets. The bibliography can be used to show how data from one dataset can be used to look at many different research topics.

Buley Library has configured our ICPSR subscription so that if you are using an on-campus computer, links will provided when the fulltext of an article is available in a journal or database that we subscribe to.

What subjects are covered in ICPSR?

ICPSR contains datasets in almost every subject area, including:

Public Opinion

Politics

Elections and Voting

International Affairs

Terrorism

Health Care

Demographics

Crime and Justice

Substance Abuse

Historical Studies

and much more

Do I need access to statistical software such as SPSS, STATA and SAS?

For some of the datasets, yes. None of the computers in the library reference area (on the first floor) have any statistical software installed, but SPSS is available in most of the campus computing labs. However, ICPSR has placed a large number of studies in its Online Data Analysis section, where you can create tables using the data from some studies online without having to download the entire dataset into a statistical software program.

What kind of assistance can I get at the library?

We can help with locating a dataset, looking for articles in the bibliography of data-related literature, or identifying specific questions within a dataset.

We cannot help with the actual statistical analysis. For assistance with statistical analysis, please speak with your professor. If you'd like to set up an appointment with a librarian, email Lisa Bier at bierl1@southernct.edu .

Where else can I get help?

ICPSR has many online guides to help you begin working with data. Click here to read their Data Use Tutorial for beginners. For an overview of what ICPSR offers, click here to read the ICPSR User Guide.

Buley Library has many books about quantitative research and statistical software. Doing a keyword search in the library catalog CONSULS using the terms SPSS, STATA, or "quantitative analysis" will bring up many titles.

2/9/09

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