Research Tools
A few resources that may support you in your research. See also Online Tools.
Variety of downloadable spreadsheets and other tools for various situations. Mousing over the Free Software link in the site's lefthand column gives access to online calculators as well.
UK site for use of Microsoft Excel in structural engineering and construction environments. May best be used as a guide for finding other sites: by the listed date, this site appears not to have been updated recently but links are still live. From the site: "Here you will find files, resources, information and links to other web sites for engineering spreadsheets and for Microsoft Excel in general. " Also links to sites with free downloadable software, subdivided by Spreadsheets for Structural Engineering; Free CAD Software; Free USA Engineering Software;
Rest Of The World - Free Engineering Software; and Free Office Software.
Downloadable applications that enable analysis of special situations: cotton growth, snow-melt runoff, light interaction in vegetation canopies, and an integrated farm model among others.
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Maintained by the Department of Economics at Iowa State University. Provides descriptions of and links to various applications, many of which are freely available and/or open source but some are not—be sure to read individual descriptions carefully. From the site: “This site stresses general programming languages and toolkits suitable for agent-based computational economics (ACE) and complex adaptive systems (CAS) modeling.”
Glossary of Social Science Computer and Social Science Data Terms
(previously of UC-San Diego but moving to an independent non-profit)
http://3stages.org/glossary/about.shtml
Although this glossary has an intended audience of data librarians it may also be of use for researchers. From the Web site: "It does not attempt to cover all social science research terms or all computer terms."
International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST)
Resource Guides
http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/guides/
Searchable database of how-to guides covering everything from conducting polls, to using particular databases and data sets, to statistical software.
The IASSIST tools are a collection of scripts, programs, etc. created by members. The UK Data Archive "tools comprise a variety of utilities for generating, managing, manipulating and converting social survey data and metadata files," including one to convert SPSS files to Stata format.
Think ahead! Statistics show that preparing metadata throughout the research process costs virtually nothing while trying to create it in retrospect adds 30% of the total cost of the research. If you think you might want to deposit your data with ICPSR, start at the beginning of your project with these guidelines.
From the web site: "Datasets in this collection are intended to include all data and information necessary to permit another researcher to replicate a corresponding published article, book, or dissertation. These replication datasets may also contribute to the building of synthetic cohorts, time series, or meta-analysis datasets, and they may prove useful for classroom instruction." So if a researcher wanted to replicate a study but for a different year or a different state, these data sets would enable one to do that.
"Datasets in this category are distributed in exactly the same condition and format sent by the data contributor, and have not been examined in any way by the ICPSR staff. This category succeeds and incorporates the category once known as "ICPSR Data Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Economics Division" (informally known as ICPSR Class V data)."
MADEIRA (Multilingual Access to Data Infrastructures of the European Research Area)
http://www.madiera.net/
"...provides unified access to an unprecedented quantity of social science datasets published by data archives registered with the portal. In the portal users may browse and search for datasets in several European languages. The portal harvests documentation of published datasets, organizes the extracted information using a set of multilingual thesauri and taxonomies and makes the result available through a responsive and highly customizable Web interface. Datasets may be explored through the portal and users may do simple analysis or download data in preferred format in the Web interface...Access to actual datasets may be restricted, following conditions for use set by the participant archives and data depositors. The portal and this user guide will instruct you on how to get access to these data."
A project of the Visual Communication Lab which is a division of IBM's Collaborative User Experience (CUE) research group. Many Eyes offers a site to share data sets and create visual depictions of them, "to enable a new social kind of data analysis." The group believes both that visual analysis is efficient since patterns jump out when data is viewed as a chart or graph, and that group discussion adds valuable dimensions to understanding data. "Visualization is a catalyst for discussion and collective insight about data...When we share it and discuss it, we understand it in new ways." The site offers a variety of ways to visualize data from commonly used maps, bar charts and line graphs to experimental ones like tag clouds and matrix charts.
Provides "an easy way to perform random sampling or assign participants to experimental conditions."
“Swivel's mission is to make data useful.
- Explore and compare data, graphs and maps.
- Share insights via email, blog or data downloads.
- Upload the data you care about.
Swivel is a Web site that makes it easy for everyone to collaborate and explore data together — because better informed people make better decisions: in voting booths, in corporate boardrooms and at neighborhood meetings. We believe data is most valuable when it's out in the open where everyone can see it, debate it, have fun, and share new insights. Swivel is applying the power of the Web to data so that life gets better.”
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