Description:

There is a vast amount of open and freely available social science data for use in your research. In this session we examine the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and National Historical Geographical Information System (NHGIS) resources and how you can put the thousands of datasets available through these resources to use using a range of analytical tools such as R, STATA, or geospatial software (QGIS or ArcGIS).

ICPSR is the world's largest archive of digital social science data; they archive many surveys and exit polls. NHGIS provides free online access to summary statistics and GIS boundary files for U.S. censuses from 1790 through the present, as well as other georgraphical data files and surveys. We will cover how to download sample data from each website, as well as how to load that downloaded data into either statistical software (R & STATA) or GIS software (ArcGIS & QGIS). Please bring your laptop.

Bring your lunch!