Presentation for World Bank seminar 16.02.2012

1. Adapting to an open data world:
delivering international data for
education and research in the UK
Dr Jackie Carter
Mimas, University of Manchester, UK
E: j.carter@manchester.ac.uk T:JackieCarter

2. Acknowledgments:
Simon Industrial Fellowship Fund, University of
Manchester, UK
ESDS-International Team
RSS getstats campaign
Open University SCORE Teaching Fellowship Programme
World Bank

3. Outline of Talk
1. What’s Mimas? What’s ESDS? Who am I?
2. What’s happening in the UK?
– Royal Statistical Society (RSS) getstats
– Economic and Social Science Research Council
(ESRC) and British Academy
3. Open University Teaching Fellowship Project
– Open Educational Resources (OER)
– Statistical literacy & sharing best practice
4. Adapting to an open data world

4. 1. What’s Mimas?

5. mimas.ac.uk

6. A Nationally designated data centre
A Centre of Excellence based in the
University of Manchester
An organisation of uniquely skilled
experts
A provider of world-class data and
information resources to support
research, learning and teaching

7. mimas.ac.uk/about/partners

8. mimas.ac.uk/about/portfolio

10. 1. What’s ESDS?

11. The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS)
www.esds.ac.uk
• national data archiving and dissemination service for social science
data
• principal data service for UK academic social science community
• core archiving services plus four specialist data services
• ESDS International
• ESDS Government
• ESDS Longitudinal
• ESDS Qualidata
provide:
 dedicated web sites
 data and documentation enhancements
 user support
 training

12. www.esds.ac.uk/international

13. ESDS International
• is run by Mimas and UK Data Archive
• promotes the use of international datasets in research and teaching across
a range of disciplines
• provides free web-based access to key international macro level databanks
• helps users locate and acquire international micro level datasets
• Freely available to UK FE and HE – open data is open access!
• Authenticated via federated access (Shibboleth) and ESDS online
registration
• Delivered via Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server (WDS) – moving to .STAT
• Download formats include *.xls, *.csv and *.ivt

14. Aggregate data portfolio …
International Monetary Fund United Nations
Direction of Trade Statistics Common Database
Balance of Payments Statistics COMTRADE
Government Finance Statistics
International Financial Statistics
World Economic Outlook
United Nations Industrial
World Bank
World Development Indicators
Development Organization
Industrial Statistics Databases
World Bank Global Development Finance
Demand Supply Databases
Africa Development Indicators
ESDS International provides free online access to the full versions of the
latest releases of these databases to the UK academic community.

15. Aggregate data portfolio (cont)
Organisation for Economic International Energy
Co-operation and Development Agency
OECD Education Statistics Coal Information
OECD Globalisation CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion
OECD International Development Electricity information
Energy Prices and Taxes
OECD International Direct Investment Statistics
Energy Technology Research and
OECD International Migration Statistics Development Database
OECD International Trade by Commodities Natural Gas Information
Statistics Oil Information
OECD Main Economic Indicators Renewables Information
OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators World Energy Statistics and Balances
OECD National Accounts
OECD Quarterly Labour Force Statistics Eurostat
OECD Services Statistics
New Cronos
OECD STructural ANalysis
OECD Social Expenditure Database

16. ESDS-I Value-Add
Academics value:
being able to search and access all the data
using a single interface
helpdesk – authoritative advice
dataset and software user guides
www.esds.ac.uk/international/support/dataset_guides.asp
www.esds.ac.uk/international/support/software_guides.asp
video help guides
esds.ac.uk/International/support/video-guides.asp
training
www.esds.ac.uk/international/support/teach.asp
Annual conference to meet with data
providers, give early career researchers
opportunity to present
www.esds.ac.uk/international/news/confproc.asp

18. Source: ESDS Annual Report 2009-10:
http://www.esds.ac.uk/news/publications/ESDSAnnualReport2009-2010.pdf

19. Foreign direct investment in
particular ranked highly across
all the frequently
selected countries. Series
relating to education are of
particular interest, in
particular expenditure on
education, and educational
outcomes such as attainment
and the fraction of the labour
force with a secondary
education.
What do Academics Want? Research requirements for cross-national data. Russell,
Murphy, Gemmell (3rd OECD World Forum, Busan, 2009)
http://bit.ly/yPjOr7

20. http://www.esds.ac.uk/international/news/mapusage.asp?print=1

21. http://www.esds.ac.uk/resources/datainuse/casestudies.asp

22. The UK Data Service
• A new UK Data Service (UKDS) is being
commissioned for launch in Fall 2012
• The new service will bring together
current ESRC data services into a single
resource to provide a more unified,
simpler and seamless access to data
resources
• This includes the data currently hosted
by ESDS International

23. 1. Who am I?
• Senior manager for socioeconomic data and
learning and teaching services
• Director for Jorum (jorum.ac.uk) a national
teaching and learning repository
• Teaching Fellow for the Open University’s
Support Centre for Open Resources in
Education (SCORE)
• Interested in use of data in teaching

24. 2. What’s happening in the UK?
Royal Statistical Society RSS

29. www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/161599/new-campaign-offers-tips-to-help-journalists-get-their-numbers-straight/

30. 2. What’s happening in the UK?
Funding for Quantitative Methods
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
and British Academy
– Curriculum Innovation and Research Developer
Initiative
• ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative
• Nuffield Foundation
– QM for undergraduate social scientists

31. Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC) and British Academy
www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/15407/latest-opportunity-13.aspx

32. Curriculum Innovation

33. Curriculum Innovation

34. Researcher Developer Initiative (RDI)

35. Researcher Developer Initiative (RDI)

36. www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/19172/technology-boost-for-maths-skills.aspx

37. Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (phase 1)
www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/19214/secondary-data-analysis-
initiative-phase-12012.aspx

38. Nuffield Foundation (‘imminent’)
www.nuffieldfoundation.org/quantitative-methods-undergraduate-social-scientists

39. ESDS-I Value-Add for Teaching
• Usage Aug 2010 – Jul
2011
– Countries and
Citizens: Unique
page views: 15,928
– UNMDGs: Unique
page views: 3,294
– Teaching Tools:
Unique page views:
2,325 (from 28 Oct
2010)
Developed by Received e-learning
Susan Noble and commendation by Economics
Richard Wiseman Network

40. 3. Open University Teaching
Fellowship

41. The aims of this project are to share teaching resources and
expertise in those institutions already working to upskill
students in QM; and to focus on resources that address
global issues by using real world data
The resulting open educational resources (OER) will be
accompanied by ‘stories’ or narratives of exemplar usage,
engaging social science learners with QM. The focus will be
away from economics and psychology

42. Progress to date
• Interviewed:
– Staff from 6 universities
• Leeds Metropolitan, Plymouth, London School of Economics and Political Science, Cardiff,
Manchester Metropolitan, University of Manchester
– Policy related – Save the Children
– RSS Statistical Education Centre
• Attended:
– BBC Data Journalist course – Sources, Scoops and Spreadsheets
• Planned:
– NCRM (National Centre for Research Methods) colleagues in Southampton
– Speak to all RDI/CI award holders
– Involvement in an RDI bid at University of Manchester
• Speaking at:
– OER12 conference, Cambridge, UK 2012
– 2012RC33 Eighth International Conference on Social Science Methodology,
Sydney, July 2012

43. Findings to date
• Few lecturers are using data at undergraduate
level in social science classes (except economics)
• If data used, mainly in lectures – hands-on is
difficult
• Students hard to enthuse with data
– But the innovative lecturers are attempting to do this
• Sharing of open educational resources
– It’s going to be a long hard slog!
– BUT willingness to share amongst peers as long as
attribution is clear
• Link to skills and employability is important

44. Some outputs
www.scoop.it/
t/statistical-
data-literacy
Carter, J., Noble, S., Russell, A., Swanson, E. (2011). Developing Statistical Literacy
Using Real World Data: Investigating Socioeconomic Secondary Data Resources
used in Research and Teaching International Journal of Research & Method in
Education, Taylor & Francis.

45. What about openness?
• Is open a step too far
for some?
• Where to share?
• How to develop a
community
• It’s about open practice
not just open
educational resources
http://bit.ly/vFwt32

46. Sharing on the commons

47. 4. Adapting to an open data world
• Open data under open licenses
• Open data under open technologies

48. Breakdown By Data Provider: Downloads
EuroStat IEA IMF Combined NatStats OECD UN Common Unido World Bank
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
Reporting Year 08/09 Reporting Year 09/10 Reporting Year 10/11 (Adjusted)

49. Downloads of Highest Usage Datasets
IEA IMF Combined OECD
World Bank 12 per. Mov. Avg. (IEA) 12 per. Mov. Avg. (IMF Combined)
12 per. Mov. Avg. (OECD) 12 per. Mov. Avg. (World Bank)
10000
WB opens data ESDS opens WB data
9000
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
March
March
March
March
March
May
May
May
May
May
July
July
July
July
July
January
January
January
January
January
September
September
September
September
September
November
November
November
November
November
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

50. Data Ingest

51. SIS-CC

52. Linked Data

53. CAIRD3/InFuse Project
infuse.mimas.ac.uk
Funded by the ESRC and the ONS, we’re
aiming to make the Census easier to use by
working with multidimensional data sets.

55. "It's vital to help users of the Census to
express their needs in simple terms and so
swiftly find what they want, without specialist
knowledge…
the Infuse project has already made
great progress towards removing
barriers to access."
Keith Dugmore, Demographic Decisions Ltd

56. Thank you and questions
Dr Jackie Carter
Mimas, University of Manchester, UK
E: j.carter@manchester.ac.uk T:JackieCarter