Conference workshops are scheduled for Saturday, June 10, 2000 and will take place in various computer labs at Northwestern University. As in past years, workshops include both full-day and half-day sessions. Full day sessions run from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. with a one hour lunch break. Morning sessions run 9:00am-12:00pm; afternoon sessions run 1:00-4:00p.m. For more information about individual workshops, please contact the Workshop Coordinator, Patrick Yott / pmy2n@virginia.edu.

• Creating a Data Service
• Preparing Data for Your User Community (Part 1)
• Preparing Data for Your User Community (Part 2)
• The Data Documentation Initiative: Creating XML Documents and XSL Style Sheets
• Publishing DDI-documented data through NESSTAR
• Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Social Sciences
• Locating and Documenting US Spatial Data

Creating a Data Service: Where Do You Start?

This Full Day workshop will introduce participants to a variety of topics in the design and implementation of a new data services department. We will examine how to manage and organize data services, identify and select data and documentation, and review issues regarding access and use of the data. The workshop is introductory in nature and is designed for new data librarians and data service providers.

Instructors: Jocelyn Tipton (Yale U) and Christof Galli (Duke U)

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Preparing Data For Your User Community (Part 1>)

This is the first part of a two part workshop that will introduce participants to various tools that can be used to read, massage and analyze data that come in different formats. It will focus primarily on the use of raw ASCII files. Participants will work through examples using SPSS, SAS, STATA, and PERL . This will be followed by a series of hands-on exercises to ensure that there is an understanding of material being discussed. Work with the statistical packages will be done in a windows environment, while the PERL session will be done under UNIX.

The morning session will cover the following topics:

• SPSS. The participant will be shown how to read data into SPSS from non-spss system file formats. Topics covered will include such things as reading raw ASCII files, import, translate and, time permitting, some descriptive statistics to confirm that the data has been properly read. Data from a survey such as the Eurobarometer will be used in this exercise.
• STATA - this section of the workshop will be a brief introduction to the fundamentals of reading data and getting it into a STATA data set.

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Preparing Data For Your User Community (Part 2)

This is the second part of a two part workshop that will introduce participants to various tools that can be used to read, massage and analyze data that come in different formats. It will focus primarily on the use of raw ASCII files. Participants will work through examples using SPSS, SAS, STATA, and PERL . This will be followed by a series of hands-on exercises to ensure that there is an understanding of material being discussed. Work with the statistical packages will be done in a windows environment, while the PERL session will be done under UNIX.

The afternoon session will cover:

• SAS and the PSID. In this section the participant will be working with files from the PSID. Specifically the participant will be shown how to read from both the family and individual files and how to merge these records together. One of the issues with the PSID is the continuity of variables over time. An exercise will be given where the user will have to find a set of variables from 2 different years of the family files and use the individual files to link these records. The participant will rely on programs, codebooks and information from the PSID web site.
• PERL - this section will be a brief introduction on the use of PERL to read and manipulate large data files. In some instances this is easier and quicker than using the packages outlined in the first part of the course. Time, permitting other PERL utilities will be demonstrated.

Instructors: Bo Wandschneider (U of Guelph), Gregory Haley (Columbia U)

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The Data Documentation Initiative: Creating XML Documents and XSL Style Sheets

The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is rapidly becoming an international standard for the content, presentation, transport, and preservation of "metadata," the information users need to select, evaluate, manipulate, and understand statistical data in the social and behavioral sciences. Information contained in traditional codebooks can now be created in a uniform, highly structured format that is easily and precisely searchable, that lends itself well to simultaneous use of multiple data sets, and that will significantly improve the content and usability of social science metadata. The DDI is also playing a significant role in the design and development of Web based data dissemination and analysis systems. This workshop will provide an understanding of the DTD, an introduction to how DDI documents are created and used with style sheets, and a review of how the DDI is used in the dynamic NESSTAR system of data discovery, usage, and dissemination. This is part one of a two part session. See DDI2: NESSTAR

• Part 1. Scope: Overview of the structure of the Data Documentation Initiative XML DTD, its current status and applicability. Instructors: Ann Green (Yale University) and Peter Joftis (ICPSR) Time: 30 mins
• Part 2. Scope: Introduction to authoring DDI documents. Participants will create sample codebooks using the UMn shareware authoring tool. The workshop will include a review of a basic codebook and how the material maps into the DDI DTD structure. Hands-on coding activity will be focused in two sections: 1) the study level information and 2) the file and data description portions of the codebook. Copies of the authoring tool and fully tagged codebook will be provided to all participants. Instructors: Wendy Treadwell and Bill Block (UMN), and Peter Granda (ICPSR) Time: 90 mins
• Part 3. Scope: Overview of the purpose and use of style sheets using XSL and DDI codebooks. Participants will be able to review and edit sample style sheets. Instructor: Patrick Yott (University of Virginia) Time: 60 mins

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Publishing DDI-documented data through NESSTAR

The session will give an introduction to the NESSTAR system and how to run a NESSTAR server. A brief overview of the end-user tool (the Explorer) will be followed by a more thorough introduction to the tools that have been developed to make it easy to create and publish DDI-documented data, either on a NESSTAR server or through other systems. These tools includes various stand alone converters from existing formats to the DDI, a fully DDI-supporting statistical package with an integrated DDI-editor (NSDstat), and the NESSTAR Publisher which will allow archives/reseachers to develop their data/metadata and publish them over the Web to a (remote) NESSTAR server.

The workshop will be a mixture of introductions and hands-on session and give the participants concrete experience on how to set up and populate a Web-based data library based on the DDI-standard.

Particpants registering for this workshop are encouraged to register for Introduction to DDI.

Instructors: Jostein Ryssevik (Norwegian Social Science Data Services), Lene Wule (Danish Data Archive), Ken Miller and Melanie Wright (University of Essex Data Archive)

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Social Sciences

The workshop will provide a brief introduction to GIS and its application to social sciences. The workshop will consist of two chief components: 1) a basic overview of GIS principles and concepts, and 2) hands-on use of ArcView GIS software. Hands-on exercises will focus on U.S. Census numeric and spatial data, but the possibilities for integrating infrastructure, environmental, and imagery data into social sciences applications will also be investigated. A brief overview of relevant data resources will be provided. At the end of the workshop, participants will be provided with pointers to available resources for continued learning. Previous experience with GIS is not required.

Instructor Steve Morris (North Carolina State University)

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Locating and Documenting US Spatial Data

For new GIS users, this half-day workshop will focus on the problems of of locating, identifying, and acquiring spatial data products in the United States. We'll have an overview of the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure and give some attention to interpreting and implementing standard metadata structures promulgated by the Federal Geographic Data Committee.

Instructor: Michael Furlough (U. Virginia)

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