|
Research methodology Secondary data sources
Surveys are
expensive and labour-intensive. Because it may not be possible to conduct surveys with
samples large enough to generate valid and useful data, it may be advisable for
researchers to use existing or "secondary" data. Some secondary data
resources in South Africa and elsewhere:
South
Africa
South
African Data Archives (SADA)
SADA maintains datasets of completed research which are available for secondary analysis.
SADA also hosts SADAUG, a discussion list for those using SADA datasets. For further
information about SADA visit
http://www.nrf.ac.za/sada/
Statistics
SA
Stats SA is the primary site for datasets provided by the South African government:
http://www.statssa.gov.za/
International
CESSDA
(Council of European Social Science Data Archives)
CESSDA offers a clickable map of social science data archives around the world:
http://www.nsd.uib.no/cessda/europe.html
SDA
archive
The SDA archive at Berkeley contains a number of datasets from the United States, Italy
and Brazil:
http://csa.berkeley.edu:7502/
Social
Sciences Data Collection
University of California, San Diego:
http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/ssdc/catalog.html
IASSIST
The International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology
(IASSIST) is a broad overview site that can provide guidance for users of social data.
IASSIST is an organization that helps bridge the interests and concerns of three distinct
communities working in the public and private sector:
- social researchers and
scientists who are producers and users of micro and macro-level social data;
- information specialists who
preserve social data, manage facilities and provide services that promote the secondary
use of social data; and
- computing specialists who
advance technical methods to manipulate and analyze social data. IASSIST has a membership
of individuals, many of whom are professionals in social data information centres.
The IASSIST Web site
includes some of its publications, training activities, and more:
http://datalib.library.ualberta.ca/iassist/index.html
|
