Technical Projects
AMRADS
Accompanying Measure to Research and Development in Official Statistics; designed to create the conditions for facilitating technology and know-how transfer of results of research projects of European Programme of Research in Official Statistics.
ESEC
Proposed European Socio-economic Classification. This project involves a consortium of researchers and statistical agendies which is creating a socio-economic classification for use in comparative scientific and policy research across the EU member states. The proposed system in available for comment on the project’s website.
Contact: David Rose
Comparative Data: Post-hoc harmonisation of data
CHER
The Consortium of Household Panels for European Socio-Economic Research was a feasibility study for a data production and dissemination exercise. The Consortium developed and enhanced a comparative database for longitudinal household studies by harmonizing and integrating micro datasets from a large variety of independent national panels and from the European Community Household Panel. The current database, which is available for comparative research, contains data from 1990 to 2000 for 18 European countries. The CHER consortium includes teams from eleven national panel studies or comparative research institutions.
CHINTEX
The Change from Input Harmonisation to Ex-post Harmonisation in National Samples of the European Community Household Panel (CHINTEX) was a shared-cost research project supported by the European Commission's Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The harmonisation of European surveys run by national institutes is a task of growing importance for the European statistical system. The European Community Household Panel (ECHP) switched in three countries from input harmonisation with strict comparability of questionnaires and statistical routines to ex-post harmonisation with reduced comparability of questionnaires and statistical routines. This switch of method was caused by the end of three national sub-samples and their replacement by ongoing household panels run by other institutes. It was the overall objective of CHINTEX by means of this unique data situation to clarify if it is necessary to have centralised, standardised survey instruments to achieve harmonisation and comparability or if this objective can also be achieved by ex-post harmonisation, by which independent national sources are satisfactorily converted to common concepts, definitions, survey questions etc. Furthermore, the project investigated important hypotheses about the data quality of panel surveys (non-response, reporting errors and panel effects) which are of general interest for survey statisticians.
Comparative Data: Prior harmonisation of data
European Social Survey
The European Social Survey (the ESS) is an academically-driven social survey designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of its diverse populations. Now in its second round, the survey covers over 20 nations and employs the most rigorous methodologies. One of the most innovative features of the ESS is that individual countries participate according to a clear and detailed central specification of requirements. These documents are produced by the CCT and are revised and updated after each round of the survey. The ESS presents an outstanding opportunity to investigate important methodological issues concerning survey data quality in a cross-national context. It has three principal objectives:
- To produce rigorous trend data about changes in people’s underlying values – climate shifts in attitudes rather than mere fluctuations in the weather
- To surmount the longstanding obstacles to comparability in the conduct of cross-national surveys in general and of attitudinal surveys in particular
- To achieve recognition for reliable social indicators and attitudinal measures - alongside economic and behavioural measures – as appropriate criteria by which to judge and compare the quality of life in different societies
International Social Science Project (ISSP)
The ISSP (International Social Survey Programme) is an ongoing annual programme of cross-national collaboration, in 39 nations. The first survey was conducted in 1985 in six countries. The ISSP marks several new departures in the area of cross-national research. First, the collaboration between organisations is not ad hoc or intermittent, but routine and continual. Second, while necessarily more demanding than collaboration dedicated solely to cross-national research on a single topic, the ISSP makes cross-national research a basic part of the national research agenda of each participating country. Third, by combining a cross-time with a cross-national perspective, two powerful research designs are being used to study societal processes.
Analysis Tools
NESSTAR
NESSTAR software is an integrated suite of products aimed at facilitating the location and use of socio-economic, and similarly structured, data.
A set of programs for the documentation and Web-based analysis of survey data.
Centre for Comparative European Survey Data (CCESD) Information System
A generic social survey processing machine, capable of customisation to meet the needs of primary researchers, data archivists, and end-users, including tools for cross-national, cross series manipulation and comparisons with the aim of providing the end user with direct access to the original survey materials.
Quality Assured Data Management Using AQS (Active Quality Management System)
A system for data management and maintenance, and a system for the control of the complete research process from study conception through study execution, analyses and reporting aimed at guaranteeing data quality and data security and supporting study development and investigation processes via the Internet, as well as conventionally.
Metadata Projects
MetaNet
Metanet, which ran for 30 months from November 2000, was a metadata-based project, aimed at the development of standards in the description of statistical metadata and statistical information systems, the dissemination of the resulting proposed standard to the user communities and, ultimately, the achievement of a coherent approach and a common model. Working through Working Groups, in which several NESSIE partners were involved, the project held its Final Conference in May 2003 at which it presented its model to representatives of the National Statistical Offices, academic research institutes and data archives. The summary of the proceedings and details of the model development have been made available.
Madeira
Multilingual Access to Data Infrastructures of the European Research Area (MADEIRA) is a project designed to develop an integrated and effective distributed social science portal to facilitate access to a range of data archives and disparate resources, employing a multi-lingual thesaurus to break the language barriers to the discovery of key resources, linked to training programme.
MetaDater
Metadata Management and Production System for Surveys in Socio-economic Research (METADATER) is a project aimed at development of standards for the description of large scale comparative surveys over space and time and the provision of tools for metadata creation and management for such surveys.
ZA CodebookExplorer
Software to allow the interrogation of metadata for comparative surveys developed by the Central Archive for Empirical Social Research at the University of Cologne, Germany. Allows the user to browse studies and variables, compare variables and languages, view various items in same way, download questionnaires, view found variables, questions and descriptions and make frequency analyses. Available on CD Rom and in an internet version.
JDSurvey Database
JDSurvey is a survey database management system developed by JDSystems working with the Análisis Sociológicos, Económicos y Políticos, S.A. (ASEP), Madrid in Spain, designed to be a complete software package for creating, storing, searching and analysing survey data
COSMOS
Cluster Of Systems of Metadata for Official Statistics; an accompanying measure (Cluster) of five projects of the European Union Framework 5 research programme, aimed at building better metadata repositories by exchanging ideas and experiences in using metadata systems for the individual projects, identifying a common set of metadata objects, with agreed definitions, attributes and methods, implementing a demonstration subset of these objects to show interoperability of the developed systems, defining a methodology for further developing this interoperability.
Documentation Projects
DDI : Data Documentation Initiative
The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is an effort to establish an international criterion and methodology for the content, presentation, transport, and preservation of "metadata" about datasets in the social and behavioural sciences.
Promoting Easy, Effective and Economical Access to Essential European Data
©NESSIE 2004
