Anecdotes about Data

Census 2010 Redistricting Files Published State by State Only

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:38:09 -0600

I guess it's been a while since I last looked at Census Bureau redistricting data because I was briefly surprised to find that the data are only available state by state. If you wish to view the data for the nation as a whole you'll need to download the table you're viewing and do the addition yourself. This is true for the redistricting data in Censuses 2000 and 2010, each of which is available from American Factfinder.

Census Data & Zip Codes

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:23:31 -0600

The Census Bureau does not publish data by Zip Code. Zip Codes are mail delivery codes created at and for the convenience of the U.S. Postal Service. Zip Codes are not consistent geographic units and the Census Bureau has to have consistency in a geographic unit in order to create meaningful statistics.

However, the Census Bureau did create "Zip Code Tabulation Areas" for Census 2000 which approximate real Zip Codes. Data from Census 2010 will eventually be available at the ZCTA level too, but the American Community Survey will not. As the American Community Survey is now the only source of nationwide socio-economic statistics for small geographic areas, this means users who need data organized by Zip Code will need to look elsewhere.

What Data Can I Expect to Get from the 2010 Census?

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:10:30 -0600

With the development of the American Community Survey over the last decade, the 2010 Census was much, much shorter than in 2000 or indeed any previous Census except for 1790.

In 2010, there were only 10 questions covering:

how many people live here
how old they are
what sex they are
how they are related
how they define their race
how they define their ethnicity
whether their home is owned, rented, or no payment required
whether the people in this house sometimes live elsewhere (college, nursing homes, prison, military, etc)

For recent data on any other socio-economic topics, users must now use the American Community Survey.

Reality Check on Real-Time Data

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:45:10 -0600

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) runs many real-time data streams including water stage data. While the USGS clearly thinks this is worth doing, they provide a succinct reminder to users that, like everything in life, real-time data are not perfect. More importantly, they don't consider this a cause for panic - a cause for later analysis and data revision, certainly - but not panic when initial and public data may be inaccurate. After all, they're measuring events in the real world and not a controlled laboratory setting.

See the FAQ entry for "I frequently kayak the Potomac River and the real-time stage data reported by USGS seem to be too high (or too low). Are the USGS data inaccurate?" their answer.

National Science Foundation to begin requiring data management plans for all grant proposals

Thu, 13 May 2010 11:31:50 -0600

"During the May 5th meeting of the National Science Board, National Science Foundation (NSF) officials announced a change in the implementation of the existing policy on sharing research data. In particular, on or around October, 2010, NSF is planning to require that all proposals include a data management plan in the form of a two-page supplementary document. The research community will be informed of the specifics of the anticipated changes and the agency's expectations for the data management plans."

For more information, see "Scientists Seeking NSF Funding Will Soon Be Required to Submit Data Management Plans"

Social science electronic data library : SSEDL Now Available!

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:25:38 -0600

More than 500 health and social science datasets from more than 250 studies, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). SSEDL data archives have been used by thousands of students and professionals at universities and research institutions throughout the United States for more than 20 years.

Direct URL: http://www.lib.umn.edu/get/16525

2010 ICPSR Summer Program Registration is open

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:04:06 -0600

The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is pleased to announce the 2010 Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research.

As many subscribers to this list already know, the main component of the Summer Program is held on the campus of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Lectures and workshops on a wide variety of topics in research design, quantitative reasoning, statistical methods, and data processing are presented in two four-week sessions.

The first session runs from June 21, 2010 until July 16, 2010.

The second session runs from July 19, 2010 until August 13, 2010.

The contents of the two sessions are largely independent of each other, although some second-session workshops do assume that participants are familiar with material from first-session courses.

The 2010 ICPSR Summer Program will also offer a number of three- to five-day workshops on both statistical and substantive topics throughout the summer. These shorter workshops are held in a variety of locations: Amherst, MA; Ann Arbor, MI; Bloomington, IN; Chapel Hill, NC; and New Haven, CT.

We are currently accepting applications for our four-week sessions and for all of our statistical short courses. The roster of substantive workshops is still being put together; a complete list of all courses will be sent out in the near future.

The 2010 application form, registration instructions, fee structure, and further information about the ICPSR Summer Program are all available on our web site:

http://icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/

Please feel free to contact us with any questions at: sumprog@icpsr.umich.edu

STATA Tutorials on YouTube from the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:50:28 -0600

And now the College of Liberal Arts is starting on a series of STATA tutorials at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwqGlV9uKrM&feature=youtube_gdata!

SPSS Tutorials on YouTube from the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:45:46 -0600

The U's College of Liberal Arts (CLA) has a YouTube channel that contains, among other things, several nifty SPSS tutorials. Links below to individual tutorials, as well as the CLA Channel:

SPSS Tutorials In Order

CLA YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/umncla

ICPSR Research Paper Competitions

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:58:52 -0600

ICPSR is sponsoring three competitions to highlight the best student research papers (undergraduate and master's) using quantitative data. The objective is to encourage students to explore the social sciences by means of critical analysis of a topic supported by quantitative analysis of a dataset(s) held within ICPSR and presented in written form.

Deadline for submission is January 31, 2010.
Two competitions covers any dataset(s) held within the ICPSR archive and are eligible to undergraduate and master's students. The third competition solicits undergraduate papers addressing issues relevant to minorities in the United States, including immigrants, that utilize data from the Resource Center for Minority Data.
Up to three cash prizes will be awarded for each competition. The winner will receive a monetary award of $1,000 (second place receives $750 and third place $500).

For details on the competition, see http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/prize/index.jsp

Counties and Cities

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:48:08 -0600

To the guest with whom I was just chatting: my apologies; I hit a wrong button and lost our chat. See http://factfinder.census.gov/jsp/saff/SAFFInfo.jsp?_submenuId=aboutdata_3&_pageId=geography for an explanation of what falls within counties. Most likely you'd want a file linking counties and county subdivisions. I don't recommend using zip codes as they don't directly relate to counties, as the graphic shows. Please do try to contact me again for more assistance (though I suppose email might be better this time) and I apologize for cutting off our conversation!

ICPSR Webinar: When Setup Files Go Bad...Debugging your SAS, SPSS, and STATA code so it works!

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:23:33 -0600

You found your study...you download your data...you run the setup file ICPSR provides...and the screen fills with errors. This webinar will address common problems in the setup files provided by ICPSR for data files.

ICPSR automates its data processing and the volume of data files is large and very heterogeneous in quality, size, and characteristics. As a result, the setup files and ready-to-go files do not always work perfectly. This webinar will help you to anticipate and fix many of these common problems.

Title: ICPSR Webinar: When Setup Files Go Bad...Debugging your SAS, SPSS, and STATA code so it works!
Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/765557907

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

This webinar is open to the public - please share with any who might be interested!

Digitized and Searchable Historical Census Bureau Publications via the Internet Archive

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:59:03 -0600

The Internet Archive brings together the digitized government publications from lots of different projects so that you can search in one location for historical publications containing statistics. Of course, the search isn't exhaustive since not everything has been digitized, but the depth increases every day and there are materials from the Census back to at least the first decade of the 20th Century. Check it out at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22United%20States.%20Bureau%20of%20the%20Census%22.

It's All About How You Count: Follow Up

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:52:24 -0600

The Department of Treasury has released its report on its activities resulting from the Emegency Economic Stabilization Act (P.L. 110-343) and, indeed, they are reporting what they spent as cash rather than as the "net present value" reported by the Congressional Budget Office. See Tranche Report to Congress and Tranche Report Appendices.

To sum up:

Congressional Budget Office reports $17 billion actually spent.
Dept. of the Treasury reports $115 billion actually spent.

It's All About How You Count: Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) Expenditures

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:41:36 -0600

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its October Monthly Budget Review. If one were to skim just the tables, one would get the impression that the TARP expenditures in October were $17 billion. In the paragraph below, however, the CBO notes that

"In CBO''s view, the stock investment and associated warrants should not be recorded on a cash basis but on a net present value basis, accounting for market risk, as specified in the Emergency Economic
Stabilization Act. CBO's preliminary estimate of $17 billion for the present value cost is included in its
estimate of $134 billion for the October deficit. However, CBO anticipates that the Treasury will report
the stock purchases on a cash basis. As a result, CBO estimates that the Treasury will report the October
deficit at $232 billion."

In short, we could see radically different claims of funds spent because of different methods of reporting the dollars committed. As always, you have to pay attention whenever someone starts quoting statistics...