Family Research Quantitative Methods

Goldmines of Data - Two Major Sources of Many Datasets

In addition to the many individually-archived data sets that are being summarized in blog entries this week, I would like to call attention to two organizations that archive many data sets. Sociometrics, Inc. is a commercial venture whose goal is to preserve high-quality data sets for use by the research community. According to their website, Sociometrics (www.socio.com) currently has almost 600 data sets available from over 250 studies. Of special interest is their American Family Data Archive, (www.socio.com/afda_home.htm), which contains 122 data sets from 20 studies. Sociometrics cleans and archives data sets, using standard conventions for codebooks and variables.

The Henry Murray Research Center at Radcliffe University (www.murray.harvard.edu/mra/index.jsp) is an endowed permanent repository for quantitative and qualitative research data. A unique feature of the Murray Center's archive is that it includes videotapes, audiotapes, transcripts, raw coding sheets and other research artifacts that social scientists might want to work with. Researchers can apply for funding to visit the Murray Center and work with data on site, either for a short term or for longer stays such as a sabbatical.

Both Sociometrics and the Murray Center contribute significantly to the sharing of social science data within the research community. NIH is very supportive of data sharing. They recently published a "Data Sharing Workbook," which discusses different types of data sharing as well as data-sharing issues relevant to the protection of the rights and privacy of human subjects.