Research Guides: Scholarly Communication Support: Planning, Conducting, Disseminating, Promoting, & Assessing Research: Conducting Secondary Analysis of Existing Data

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Subjects: OER: Open (or Free) Educational Materials, Scholarly Communication

Conducting Secondary Analysis of Existing Data

Some repositories can be used to find existing data which we can analyze or combine with other data.

However, we must take care and ensure that we understand the data we find: how it was collected, how to read and interpret it, and how we are permitted to re-use it.

You may wish to review the recording or slides below from a workshop on secondary analysis, provided by the SHSU Library in 2023.

Download slides (PDF)

A Few Considerations in Evaluating Data:

Completeness / Extent of missing data
Data collection methods
Data quality measures such as reliability and validity
Availability of a contact person

Adapted from "Evaluating Data Sets," Rutgers University Libraries

Evaluating Data Reliability

@Namaste Data provides this helpful model for contextualizing data which can also help us to evaluate its quality and its appropriateness to our purpose:

Image credit: Namaste Data, email newsletter, 27 June 2024

Models for evaluating published works can also sometimes be helpful in determining before use that existing data is reasonably accurate and objective:

ACT UP Model
Author, Currency, Truth, Unbiased, Privilege
RADAR Model
Rationale, Authority, Date, Accuracy, Reason for writing (or in the case of data, Reason for Collecting)
CRAAP Model
Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose

These online datasets may be helpful or relevant to study in many disciplines. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all datasets available. Please contact the subject librarian for additional assistance.

Finding and Reusing Data on a Generalist Repository
Re3Data: Registry of Research Data Repositories
Tool to search and browse for data repositories in a wide variety of subjects and disciplines.

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) This link opens in a new window The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides data resources, data delivery mechanisms, user support and training in quantitative methods. The data is acquired from individual researchers, governmental agencies, polling agencies and international sources. Provides data in SAS, SPSS and Stata data files.
Social Science Electronic Data Library (SSEDL) This link opens in a new window Provides access to hundreds of premier datasets and thousands of variables. Each dataset is structured identically and includes the raw data file, SPSS program statements, SAS program statement, SPSS data dictionary, SPSS frequencies, SPSS portable file, and a User's Guide.

Data.gov
Federal link to datasets by topic
Google Dataset Search "Similar to how Google Scholar works, Dataset Search lets you find datasets wherever they’re hosted, whether it’s a publisher's site, a digital library, or an author's personal web page."
Google Public Data Explorer
View details about the Public Data Explorer
DataONE Searches Earth and environmental data across multiple member repositories.
DataCite DataCite searches across multiple platforms for datasets that have Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).
Dataverse Developed for the storage and collaboration of datasets on many different topics
FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data 240,000+ economic and financial time-series data from U.S. and international sources. Also provides tools to download data, create maps and graphs, and more. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
Mendeley Data Search Mendeley Data is an open research data repository, where researchers can upload and share their research data. Mendeley Data Search helps others to find and access this data.
Data USA From site: "The most comprehensive visualization of U.S. public data."
UNdata allows simultaneous searching of 24 databases from UN Statistics and Population Divisions, UN specialized agencies (International Labour Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO], World Health Organization), and member states (statistics collected by the national statistical agencies of member states).
World Bank Open Data Free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.
European Data Portal "The European Data Portal harvests the metadata of Public Sector Information available on public data portals across European countries. Information regarding the provision of data and the benefits of re-using data is also included."
European Union Open Data Portal Single point of access to a growing range of data produced by the institutions and other bodies of the European Union. Data are free to use, reuse, link and redistribute for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
IPUMS - International Census Data "Census and survey data from around the world integrated across time and space." Free data with robust documentation.
UK Data Service "the UK’s only nationally funded research infrastructure for curating and providing access to social science data"
Pew Research Center
Data about a variety of political and social trends in America.
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From website: "Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other data-driven social science research. We do not take policy positions."
UCI Datasets for Machine Learning
Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems
Kaggle Datasets
NASA NEX Earth Science Datasets
Data Portal of the Natural History Museum (London) "The Museum is committed to open access and open science, and has launched the Data Portal to make its research and collections datasets available online. It allows anyone to explore, download and reuse the data for their own research."
CDC (Center for Disease Control) Data and Statistics
Research Data Gov Web portal for discovering and requesting access to restricted microdata from federal statistical agencies

These online datasets may be helpful or relevant to the study of Environmental and Geosciences. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all datasets available. Please contact a librarian for additional assistance.

Huntsville City Maps and Geographic Information System (GIS) Data
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This resource, prepared by the City of Huntsville, Texas, GIS division, provides a variety of GIS maps and reports on topics such as FEMA flood review, planning & development, property, and mapping control.
USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program
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The National Geologic Map Database contains over 88,000 maps, along with a lexicon of geologic names. The site also contains basic information and educational material about geologic maps.
National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS)
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Aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2012.
NYU Spatial Data Repository
Note: Some datasets are freely available, others are proprietary to NYU users.
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"The Spatial Data Repository (SDR) is NYU's portal for previewing and discovering geospatial data. The collection includes resources from open data and proprietary resources, and users can download layers and work with them in many GIS platforms." (New York Univ Libraries, Data Services)
Texas Geographic Information System (GIS) Maps & Data
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This website from the Texas General Land Office provides a wide variety of downloaded GIS data sets related to the state. Maps and data are provided in the following subject areas: energy resources, professional services, oil spills and coastal response, and coastal management.

These online datasets may be helpful or relevant to the study of the Humanities. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all datasets available. Please contact the subject librarian for additional assistance.