Be ready to tackle the data deluge: essential skills in quantitative data management for the social sciences

28 November 2014

Alexandra Stam & Brian Kleiner, FORS

With the move towards large-team collaborative projects and funder requirements for data sharing, researchers need to know how to properly document and anonymize their data. This workshop will address these two key research skills that are extremely necessary for social science research in the 21st century, but rarely taught in degree program curricula. 

The workshop will also focus on other vital data management topics, including best practice in data file organization, preparation, storage, backup, and security. Participants will have a greater appreciation of the importance and interplay of these skills in their own work, as well as of how these skills can greatly enhance the value of their data.      

Target group:

Doctoral candidates in the social sciences employing empirical quantitative methods.

Objectives:

Participants will become better skilled in and more knowledgeable about documentation, anonymisation, and the other key data management skills noted in the description, especially as these relate to their own research projects.

Methods:

Hands-on learning and exercises, using real data, set inside a mystery.  

Required preparation:

Participants should bring datasets requiring documentation and/or anonymisation, either from their own research or from other studies.

Lausanne

Date: Friday 28th November 2014

Schedule: 9:00 to 17:00

Location: University of Geneva

Instructors:

Alexandra Stam is a senior researcher at FORS since 2009, working principally in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Statistical Office to facilitate research access to public micro-data. Prior to this, she worked several years at the University of Dundee in Scotland as a teaching fellow and research assistant. Trained as a geographer, her research interests are on new forms of migration, particularly student mobility, and marriage migration. She completed a PhD in 2011 on 'marriage migration and the geographies of love', combining both quantitative and qualitative methods. She is currently working on the 2016-2017 Swiss Federal Survey of Adolescents (ch-x), which will investigate geographical mobility among young people.

Brian Kleiner is head of Data and Research Information Services at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences FORS, and is member of the FORS Executive Board. He oversees the national social science data archive and inventory of research projects in Switzerland, as well as a range of activities that encourage and facilitate secondary use of data. He has over 17 years of experience in survey research and is interested in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. As a sociolinguist by training (Ph.D., Michigan State University), he also conducts methodological research that examines the complex functions of language in surveys.

Participants are eligible for reimbursement of incurred travel expenses by train between the town of their university and the location of the workshop (half-fare card, 2nd class).

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