| Home | A-Z index | Site map | Contact | Login | Search: 
ESDS logo - link to ESDS home page

About the Data Catalogue Data Catalogue logo

The Data Catalogue is an integrated catalogue which contains information on over 5,000 datasets covering an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes. The data include those supported by the specialist services:
  • ESDS Government large-scale government surveys, such as the Labour Force Survey and the General Household Survey
  • ESDS International multi-nation aggregate databanks, such as World Bank data, and survey data, such as the Eurobarometers and World Values Surveys
  • ESDS Longitudinal major UK surveys following individuals over time, such as the British Household Panel Survey
  • ESDS Qualidata a range of multimedia qualitative data sources
The catalogue also contains historical data from the History Data Service and UK census data available via Census.ac.uk.

Access to the data is via registration using federated access management (shibboleth) user authentication. Note that access to ESDS International macro data and census data is limited to users at UK higher or further education institutions. More information on registering and access can be found at How to access data.

Information is also included on relevant data that are held elsewhere. These 'virtual' records relate to those qualitative datasets held in other repositories and important cross-national datasets held at archives in other countries. Information on how to access these data is provided and in many cases a link to the associated documentation is also given.

Each dataset within the collection is described in a catalogue record containing:
  • bibliographic details (data creator, data collector, sponsor, etc.)
  • methodological information (sampling, weighting, data collection methods, etc.)
  • abstract
  • geographical coverage
  • temporal coverage
Links to associated metadata include:
  • references to publications by the data creators as well as publications based on secondary use of the data
  • subject keywords
  • variables (for many datasets)
  • online documentation (for the majority of the datasets)
  • lists of related datasets
Access to the catalogue is freely available and all users can:
  • view various levels of the metadata (bibliographic record, abstract, documentation, user guide, variable list, data dictionary)
  • download or browse the documentation
  • access frequency counts for selected data (via Explore Online/Nesstar links)
Registered users can:
  • browse, analyse or download the data for a growing number of the most popular data series
  • order the data and documentation in a variety of software formats and media
The catalogue may be searched in a variety of ways:
  • Data Catalogue search allows a free-text or a focused search on specific fields. The basic search allows a free text search on all of the study description or the variables. The advanced search allows multiple search terms to be combined to provide a more precise search.
  • Browse the Data Catalogue by subject
  • latest additions and new editions viewed via the New data releases listings
Quick links are provided to the most popular datasets, including those supported by the specialist ESDS Services (ESDS Government, ESDS International, ESDS Longitudinal and ESDS Qualidata) from the Major studies page.

Help on searching the catalogue is available and new users are advised to consult this in order to perform the most effective searches.


ESDS Home Page > Data > About the Data Catalogue
_
  Valid XHTML 1.0!
  Page last updated 29 July 2009
© Copyright 2003-2010 Universities of Essex and Manchester. All rights reserved.
Contact   |    Copyright, disclaimer and privacy policy    |    Accessibility
Link to University of Essex Link to University of Manchester Link to JISC Link to ESRC