STATISTICS AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Statistical Data from ICPSR

by Frank LoPresti

[Ed: Links to web pages and/or e-mail addresses which have become inactive since the publication of this article have been enclosed in curly brackets { }. Replacement links have been provided where possible. Note also that the NYU Academic Computing Facility (ACF) is now known as Information Technology Services (ITS).]

NYU is a founding member of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. ICPSR gives university researchers access to thousands of sets of machine-readable social science data and documentation, while acting as a national archive. Value is added to these data through access tools and by assuring that corrections are incorporated.

A detailed index with text search tools is available on ICPSR's World-Wide Web page:
{http://icpsr.umich.edu/}
Most of this data and documentation -- U.S. census enumerations, crime statistics, national longitudinal health surveys, for example -- may be ordered through us and are then available over the Internet almost instantly. ICPSR houses the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA) and the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD).

The ACF's Statistics and Social Science Home Page:
{http://www.nyu.edu/acf/socsci/} Replacement URL: http://www.nyu.edu/its/socsci
provides links to ICPSR and order forms for the data, which are free NYU researchers.

ICPSR Summer Program

ICPSR has a summer program in quantitative research methods at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, offering a comprehensive, integrated program of studies in research design, statistics, data analysis, and social methodology. Basic methodological and technical training is offered, along with opportunities for advanced work in specialized areas. Topics include: Game Theory, Regression, GIS, Hierarchical Linear Models, Logit and Log-Linear Models, LISREL, Chaos, Time Series, Categorical Data Analysis, Jackknife and Bootstrapping, Missing Data, Bayesian Modeling.

The ACF's Statistical group makes small assistance awards to help defray costs; therefore interested researchers and students should make application through the Statistical group early.

For a copy of the 1996 ICPSR Summer Program brochure and application, use Lynx or Netscape the Stats group home page. You can get there from the NYU Web home page by clicking on Facilities & Resources, Computing Facilities , and then Social Sciences, or type in the URL given above. [ C ]

Frank LoPresti heads the ACF's {now ITS} Social Sciences Group.
lopresti@nyu.edu

Posted 15 February 1996. Revised 24 May 2004.