#DataImpact2016

5 Safes animation - safely using secure data

We are happy to announce the release of our new short video describing the principles for providing safe and secure access to confidential and sensitive microdata. Using the 5 Safes enables researchers to carry out work that would not usually be possible with anonymised data - a real advantage for researchers, maximising the potential of the data.

The UK Data Service has provided such access for almost five years via its Secure Lab using the 5 Safes framework, a set of five simple protocols that provide complete assurance for data owners and researchers:

• safe data
• safe projects
• safe people
• safe settings
• safe outputs

Office for National Statistics Special Licence Review

 The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Approved Researcher Scheme is the legal gateway used to grant access to potentially disclosive microdata such as those made available under a Special Licence, for statistical research purposes. As a recent review of the scheme concluded that Approved Researchers should only access legally protected data in a secure environment, ONS is stopping the distribution of Special Licence data. As a result, new orders and applications for ONS Special Licence datasets submitted after 4 November 2016 will not be considered.

Existing research projects using ONS Special Licence data will be allowed to continue and conclude under the agreements already in place. However, if additional Special Licence data are required for these projects after 4 November 2016, researchers will need to apply for the Secure Access versions of the data which contain all the variables in the Special Licence version, but with more detail. No other ONS data available from the UK Data Service (i.e., End User Licence and Secure Access versions) will be affected. As part of these changes, ONS and the UK Data Service will be working together on a review of all data collections hosted by the UK Data Service currently made available through the ONS Special Licence.

Data Impact Fellows 2016 announced

We are delighted to announce that we have appointed our UK Data Service Data Impact Fellows for 2016-2018.

The programme is designed to support the use of UK Data Service data and resources by new generations of scholars through the research partnerships they develop and the students they teach.

Our Fellows will now begin new activities to extend the impact of their research and will write for the Data Impact Blog about their progress and develop case studies as they go to share the outcomes of their role as UK Data Service Data Impact Fellows.

ESRC Festival of Social Science

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science runs from 5-12 November across the UK. The UK Data Service is participating in the Festival with two events:

UKDS Open Data Dive, 9 November, 10.00 - 17.00 at The Shed, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).
The Manchester Open Data Dive is a one-day hackathon event bringing together coders, data enthusiasts, graphic designers, project managers and end users from all sectors to hunt down, crunch and beautify open data relating to the region.  For details of our highly succesful first Data Dive held in Septmeber, see our blog Diving in to UK Data Service Open Data featuring the winning creation 'London Spike'.

Talk Big data at Essex - Changing Lives through Research, Colchester, Essex, 10 November, 17.30 - 19.00, University of Essex.
This is a collaobrative event with several speakers, including Katherine McNeill, Functional Director for Access for the UK Data Archive (part of the UK Data Service) and Sharon Witherspoon, deputy chair of the Administrative Data Research Network (ADRN).

Changing Lives through Research is part of a series of talks to discuss the relationship between research and Big Data and what it means for you and society.  Already data is making a difference to people across the UK, hear more about how, where and why research is using big data:...

Towards Open Research - a new report from the UK Data Service

Data experts from the UK Data Service and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have been working together on a project to investigate researcher's attitudes and behaviours towards open research.

Commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, the project considered the sharing and reuse of research data, code, and open access publications in order to identify practical actions the Wellcome Trust can implement to remove barriers and maximise the opportunities for practicing open science.

Read the full report, Towards Open Research: practices, experiences, barriers and opportunities on figshare.

ESRC Longitudinal Studies Review 2017: consultation survey

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has announced a survey to aid their Longitudinal Studies Review.

Its purpose is to provide an opportunity for a wide range of stakeholders to contribute to the early thinking in the ESRC review process and allow input on the key scientific questions, methodology and technical issues ESRC longitudinal investments should address in the future. 

If you use longitudinal data and would like to contribute to the review, the survey is open from 3 October and closes on 4 November 2016.

Futuretrack: a new longitudinal study of applicants to higher education

The UK Data Service is pleased to announce the release of the new dataset Futuretrack: a Longitudinal Study of Applicants to UK Higher Education, 2006-2012.

Futuretrack is an academic research study that explores the relationship between higher education, career decision-making and labour market opportunities.

Graduate employment has become a heated issue in media and academic debates among those concerned with the relationship between higher education and the labour market.

• but what kinds of jobs are recent graduates doing?
• is it now necessary to have more than just a degree?
• are people who didn't go into higher education and got a job after school at a disadvantage or advantage relative to graduates?
• who gets career opportunities and who ends up under-employed, and just what is 'graduate employability'?

See the data behind the Joseph Rowntree Foundation strategy on UK poverty

The independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has today launched a five-point plan to solve poverty in the UK by 2030. It is the most comprehensive strategy of its kind and looks at poverty across all groups in the UK. 

The JRF calculate that poverty costs the UK £78 billion a year, £1,200 for every person and equivalent to 4 per cent of the UK's GDP. £69 billion of this figure is spent on the public services needed to deal with poverty - £1 in every £5 spent on public services. A further £9 billion is lost tax revenue and additional benefits spending due to the knock-on effects of poverty in later life.

Youth Social Action Survey, 2015

Youth social action is defined as ‘practical action in the service of others to create positive change’ and covers a wide range of activities that help other people or the environment, such as fundraising, campaigning (excluding party political campaigning), tutoring/mentoring, and giving time to charity.

Diving into UK Data Service Open Data

Stoptober, smoking and health related-research

Dr Deborah Wiltshire, Senior Access and Support Officer at the UK Data Service discusses the effect of health policy on the nation’s health. Deborah works with data, used by researchers to inform policy, providing advice on dataset content and analysis, and gives face-to-face and online introductory training to students, academics and other researchers.

October marks the annual Stoptober campaign which aims to help people give up smoking. Encouraging people to give up smoking has long been an important focus of health policy in the UK, and research carried out using data available through the UK Data Service suggests that these policies and campaigns are having some success.

The lives of young carers in England

Featured this issue

Looking for data on food and food security?

The UK Data Service is pleased to share the new set of theme pages related to food and food security.

The food system cuts across many academic disciplines and covers a wide range of research topics such as:

• the impact of extreme weather events on food systems- 
• the need of a growing population for sustainable agriculture
• food security and better access to food
• medical challenges of diseases caused by under/over nutrition
• consumer culture and attitudes toward food
• healthy diet and food safety

Sharing real-world data with students

Open data - For getting students hands-on with data, our growing collection of open data is the most accessible. These data can be downloaded from the website without registration and with no restrictions on how to share them with students.

New release of the European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST)

We are pleased to announce the latest release of the European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST).

ELSST is used for searching the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives' (CESSDA) data catalogue and facilitates access to research and data resources across Europe, independent of domain, resource, language or vocabulary.

In the latest release, September 2016, extensive improvements have resulted in the average for translated Preferred Terms, including all Broader Terms, Narrower Terms and Related Terms increasing to 98%, with most languages fully up-to-date with the source language, containing 100% of translated terms.

New data releases

Data in the pipeline

Events

• Manchester Open Data Dive 9 November
• Webinar: Key data: UK and cross-national surveys 10 November
• Webinar: Key data: Census 17 November
• Webinar: Key data: Longitudinal data 24 November
• Crime Surveys User Conference 2016 9 December

• UK Data Service Open Data Dive
• Hands on with Data – the why and how of getting students using data
• Webinar: Finding and accessing data in the UK Data Service
• Webinar: Fly in the Ointment? Investigating Demographic Representation on Twitter