The European data base is constantly growing. In spite of the increasing quantity of data, comparability is not growing at the same pace. Even though some progress can be observed re. comparability over time within large continuous data collection programs, comparability between projects is still missing.
In order to improve inter – project comparability, measurement experts from the leading continuous European data collection programs (e.g. the Household Panel Studies, Eurobarometers, European Social Survey, European representatives of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and the European Values Studies) were invited to discuss different measurement and coding approaches and to look for lines of convergence in making comparable data. Experts from the data services discussed efforts and methods to make data comparable ex post.
Experts for standard demographies (ESOMAR, EUROSTAT, GESIS) were asked to highlight their recent developments. Experts from Household Panel Studies (CEPS, ISER), EVS (ZA Cologne, EVS Tilburg), ISSP (ZA Cologne), ESS (ZUMA Mannheim) were contacted and agreed to cooperate. Experts on variable standardisation (from ZA, Cologne, ZUMA, Mannheim and from the Research Institute for Sociology, Cologne) presented their current work.
Part II: Improving Technical Access to European Socio-Economic Data
While emerging data policies are discussed, much progress has been made to improve technical access to socio-economic data. Several efforts are coordinated under the CESSDA umbrella. The roundtable presented the state of the technical development in this area. This included NESSTAR, MADIERA, MetaDater, SDA and ZA-Codebook-Explorer. Emerging standards for data definition languages were discussed (DDI et al.). Experienced data users were brought in to emphasize the users needs perspective.
The software discussion was complemented by perspectives on emerging data policies, broadband technologies and conceptual mapping of key concepts of the European database (e.g. LIMBER, specialised domain thesauri).
Progress in the conceptual development can be supported by new software approaches. An example is the ISSP-Wizard, currently being developed by the GESIS Institutes in Germany. Tools for conceptual mapping and tools to support recoding and harmonisation were discussed.
The objectives of the workshop were to document the state of the art, identify needs for further development and to suggest priorities for further RTD projects
Promoting Easy, Effective and Economical Access to Essential European Data
©NESSIE 2004
