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SDA News
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May 2008
 | SDA 3.2 released.
SDA 3.2 has been released. Searching is the major new
feature of this release. (You can try it out on our Archive
page.) Versions for Windows, Linux (on Intel x86 and compatible platforms)
and Solaris (on the
Sparc platform) are now available for ACS members. |
News From Previous Dates
March 2008
| Archive page now using SDA 3.2 for all studies.
All the studies on the Archive page are now accessed using SDA
3.2. This new version of SDA provides a search function and will be
released soon. |
| Quick Tables for GSS 1972-2006 Added to
Archive Page
Quick Tables for the GSS 1972-2006 Cumulative dataset have
been added to the SDA Archive page. |
December 2007
| User Contributions Added to
Community Page
ICPSR contributed an SPSS-Python script that converts an SPSS
system file or portable file into the files required to set up the dataset
in SDA. The University of Victoria and University of Toronto
contributed an SDA Tutorial. |
November 2007
| Dutch Prejudice Survey 1998 Added to SDA Web Site
The 1998 Dutch Prejudice Survey has
been added to the SDA Archive. |
August 2007
| American National Election Study (ANES)
1948-2004 Cumulative Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 1948-2004 American National Election Study Cumulative Dataset has
been added to the SDA Archive. The study includes a search utility that
is currently under development. (See our Projects page for more
information on searching.) |
July 2007
| GSS 1972-2006 Cumulative Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 1972-2006 General Social Surveys Cumulative Dataset has
been added to the SDA Archive. The 2006 GSS includes a search utility that
is currently under development. (See our Projects page for more
information on searching.) |
April 2007
| SDA 3.1 released. Archive page now using SDA 3.1 for all studies.
SDA 3.1 has been released. Versions for Solaris (on the
Sparc platform), Windows and Linux (on Intel x86 and compatible platforms)
are now available for ACS members. Also, we have switched to using SDA 3.1 for all the studies listed
on our Archive page. |
December 2006
| "Investigating Community and Social Capital" ICPSR
instructional module added to Community Page
This site "teaches data analysis of social capital, as
discussed in Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone." The
exercises use SDA. |
September 2006
| SDA 3.0 released
SDA 3.0 has been released. Versions for Solaris (on the
Sparc platform), Windows and Linux (on Intel x86 and compatible platforms)
are now available for ACS members. |
August 2006
| SDA Archive page now using SDA 3.0 for all studies
We have switched to using SDA 3.0 for all the studies listed
on our Archive page. We plan to release this version to ACS members in
September. |
May 2006
| Test Version of New SDA Interface Now Available in Our Archive
The next version of SDA will provide users with a new interface. It includes
program selection, variable selection and program options all on one screen.
To try it out, go to the Archive page and select the first GSS 2004
link. Comments are welcome. We expect this version to be released to
ACS members in the fall. |
January 2006
| SDA 2.1 Released
SDA 2.1 has been released and is now being used for our SDA
Archive. Versions for Solaris (on the
Sparc platform), Windows and Linux (on Intel x86 and compatible platforms)
are now available for ACS members. |
October 2005
| "Other Archives" Page changed to
"Community" Page
The "Community" page now includes various SDA
resources: books that use SDA for exercises, contributions from SDA users,
and the previous listing of other archives that use SDA. |
September 2005
March 2005
| 1986 Bay Area Race and Politics Survey Added to SDA Archive
Although this dataset is relatively old, it is of interest as
the main dataset used for the book The Scar of Race by Paul M.
Sniderman and Thomas Piazza. Funding recently became available to mark
up the dataset and expand the documentation so that it could be put up in
SDA. |
January 2005
| SDA 1.4 Released
SDA 1.4 has been released. Versions for Solaris (on the
Sparc platform), Windows and Linux (on Intel x86 and compatible platforms)
are available. Although a number of enhancements are included in the
1.4 release, the major addition is the ability to produce charts with the
crosstabulation output. |
November 2004
| SDA 1.3 for Linux Released
SDA 1.3 for Linux on Intel x86 and compatible platforms has
been released. (Although we had previously developed a test port of SDA 1.2
to Linux, this is the first official Linux release of SDA.) |
September 2004
| New Charts on SDA
The SDA crosstabulation program in our SDA Archive now
generates charts automatically. Users have a choice of charts and can
also specify the size of the chart and the orientation (horizontal or
vertical) for bar charts. This chart-generation capability is still
under development and not yet ready for release. We hope to include
charts within other SDA programs in the future. |
August 2004
| 2000 California 5% PUMS Dataset Added to SDA Archive
The 2000 California 5% PUMS Dataset has been added to the SDA
Archive. This dataset is a 5% sample of all households and persons in
California, taken from the 2000 Census. The dataset has one record for
each person in the sample and the household variables have been appended to
each person's record. The dataset contains a sample of 1.7 million
California residents. The smallest identifiable geographic area
contains 100,000 persons. |
| Quick Tables with Charts for GSS Cumulative Datafile
SDA's Quick Tables application now automatically generates charts. You
can try it out with the GSS Cumulative Datafile on the SDA Archive
page. |
April 2004
| 2000 U.S. 1% PUMS Dataset Added to SDA Archive
The 2000 U.S. 1% PUMS Dataset has
been added to the SDA Archive. This dataset is a 1% sample of all households
and persons in the United States, taken from the 2000 Census. The dataset has one
record for each person in the sample and the household variables have been
appended to each person's record. |
| SDA 1.3 Released
SDA 1.3 is now available for ACS members. This version includes enhancements to
several programs. For a summary of all the updates since 1.2b, see the "updates"
section of the online SDA 1.3 Manual (in the "Documentation"
section) |
| 'Other Archives' Page Updated
The Urban Institute's National Survey of America's Famlies has been added to the listing of 'Some Other Archives that Use SDA'.
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February 2004
| 'Listcase' program added to options for SDA Archive
The 'Listcase' program is now available for the datasets on
the SDA Archive page. Select 'List values of individual cases' to
access the program. |
January 2004
| SDA Archive page now using SDA 1.3
The SDA Archive page is now using the forthcoming version 1.3.
SDA 1.3 will be made available to ACS members in the near future. |
December 2003
| 2000 California 1% PUMS Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 2000 California 1% PUMS Dataset has
been added to the SDA Archive. This dataset is a 1% sample of all households
and persons in California, taken from the 2000 Census. The dataset has one
record for each person in the sample and the household variables have been
appended to each person's record. |
September 2003
| GSS 1972-2002 Cumulative Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 1972-2002 General Social Surveys Cumulative Dataset has
been added to the SDA Archive. |
June 2003
| New Features Added to GSS Cumulative Datafile 1972-2000
Two new features were added to the GSS Cumulative Datafile in
the SDA Archive. A link to a set of "Quick Tables" -- a simplified
way of obtaining analysis results -- has been added to the archive
page. As time permits, more Quick Tables will be added. (For more on
the "Quick Tables" project see the "Projects"
page.) Also, an alternate HTML codebook version -- with
variables stratified by year -- has been made available to help users
determine if specific questions were asked in a certain year or range of
years. |
| 'Crosstabulation' Program Updated
The statistic in the crosstabulation program that determines
the color code for each cell in a table has been revised. The statistic now
used for that purpose is called a "standardized residual."
Documentation for the revised residuals (now referred to as a Z-statistic)
is available online by clicking on the Z-statistic option on the crosstabs
option page. |
April 2003
| 'Other Archives' Page Updated
The new Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA)
has been added to the listing of 'Some Other Archives that Use SDA'.
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August 2002
| New Datasets Added to SDA Web Site
The California Workforce Survey 2001-2002 and the
Chicago African American Survey 1997 have been added to the SDA Archive.
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| Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) Available
The comparison of means program now includes an option for
producing a multiple classification analysis (MCA). |
December 2001
| Recode and Compute Available for Some Studies
The SDA site now provides an option to run the RECODE and COMPUTE programs
on some of the datasets (GSS 2000, ANES 2000, and National Race and
Politics).
These programs allow you to create new variables derived from existing
variables in each dataset. The new variables are placed into a public work
area, which is available to all users of the SDA Website. See this note
for more information.
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August 2001
| 2000 American National Election Study (ANES) Added to SDA Web Site
The 2000 American National Election Study (ANES) has been added to the SDA archive. |
July 2001
| GSS 1972-2000 Cumulative Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 1972-2000 General Social Survey Cumulative Dataset has been added to the SDA archive. |
March 2001
| GSS 1972-1998 Cumulative Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 1972-1998 General Social Survey Cumulative Dataset has been added to the SDA archive. |
September 2000
| APSA 2000 Best Instructional Software Award
In September the American Political Science Association (APSA)
presented SDA the 2000 "Best Instructional Software Award" at their annual
meeting in Washington D.C.
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| New Dataset Added to SDA Web Site
The 1998-1999 Multi-Investigator Study has been added to the archive. The study was
a national random-digit telephone survey funded by the National Science Foundation.
It involved the active participation of thirteen teams of investigators and was focused on
public opinion related to a wide variety of social and political issues. |
July 2000
| 2000 Innovators Award
The 2000 Innovators Award was recently
presented by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for SDA and the
ICPSR Web site for the General Social Survey (GSS). |
| New Programs Added to SDA Web Site
Correlation and multiple regression are now available to users of the SDA demonstation Web
site. Other programs currently available only to members of the Association include
logit/probit, recoding of variables, and computing new variables. Work is continuing
on those programs, and they may become available more generally at some future date.
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March 2000
| SDA 1.2 has been released.
SDA 1.2 is now available for ACS members. This version includes enhancements to
several programs. For example, the XCODEBK program now uses HTML tables and frames
to both improve the appearance and ease the navigation of HTML codebooks. Also, the
output of various analysis programs has been enhanced with color-coding of the cells in
the tables. (These improvements can be viewed in the SDA Archive at this site.)
In addition, SDA 1.2 includes new programs: correl (correlation matrix), regress
(multiple regression), and listcase (list contents of selected variables for selected
cases). For a summary of all the updates since 1.1, see the "updates"
section of the online SDA 1.2 Manual (in the "Documentation" section).
|
October 1999
Recent Changes to SDA Web Site Include:
| Improved on-line HTML Codebooks for GSS and ANES.
The on-line GSS and ANES codebooks in the SDA Archive have been re-done using a beta
version of the forthcoming 1.2 XCODEBK program. The improvements include a
persistent table-of-contents frame for easier navigation and enhanced HTML formatting of
various aspects of the codebook.
|
September 1999
Recent Changes to SDA Web Site Include:
| Updated Analysis Programs that Include Color-coding.
The table cells are color coded, in order to aid in detecting patterns. See the help for
each program for details on how the color-coding works for that program.
|
April 1999
Recent Changes to SDA Web Site Include:
| Variable Name Specification Now Case-Insensitive for Most Studies.
Most of the problems users have reported with using the SDA Archive turned out to be
problems with the case of variable names. For example, many GSS analysts were
accustomed to seeing the GSS variable names in upper case and therefore would specify the
variable "life", for example, as "LIFE" -- which would produce a
"variable not found" message. In response, we've added an option to the
archive configuration ("HARC") file so that user-specified variable names will
automatically be converted to upper or lower case as appropriate for the study. Now,
for most studies, case is not an issue when specifying variable names.
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| Updated Documentation for Version 1.1
The SDA 1.1 documentation -- available from this site's "Documentation" section -- has
been updated to reflect the features in the final, release version.
|
| Updated Projects Section
The "Projects"
section has been updated with information about current work on enhanced HTML codebooks.
There's also new information about our collaboration with UC Berkeley's Survey
Research Center on a project funded through ICPSR's Data Documentation Initiative
(DDI).
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| Additional Links to Other Archives that Use SDA
We've added links to some other sites using SDA software. See the
"Other Archives"
section. |
January 1999
New Version of SDA Installed
Version 1.1 of the SDA software has been installed on our Web site. The major changes
are as follows:
| Button for Extra Codebook Window.
The main option screen for a study allows you to open a separate window for the codebook.
Then you can switch easily between the codebook window and the window to run analysis
programs. You can even use the regular "copy-and-paste" procedures to copy
variable names from the codebook window to the option screen where you specify the names
of variables. This is particularly useful for studies that have long variable names.
|
| All Analysis Programs.
Weight variables are pre-specified for most studies. You can select the desired weight (or
no weight) from a drop-down list.
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| Crosstabulation Program.
The horizontal variable is now optional. If you specify only the vertical variable, and
you request statistics, the program will generate univariate statistics. The calculation
of the chi-square statistics has been modified to avoid excessive inflation of the
statistics due to the use of population weights. The weighted chi-square is now scaled
down by the factor: (Unweighted N) / (Weighted N).
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| Comparison of Means Program.
Standard errors can be requested that take into account complex sample designs (such as
for stratified cluster samples). The availability of this option depends on our having
sufficient information to specify the complete sample design. Eventually we hope to have
this information for all studies in the data archive. The methods used to
calculate standard errors are described in a separate document.
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| Instrument Documentation.
Procedures to document computer-assisted interviewing instruments have been released and
are now available. |
Updates to Online Datasets
| General Social Survey.
The dataset now includes 1996 data. Complex standard errors have also been enabled for the
Comparison of Means program. For this purpose we are using the 'sampcode' variable to
define the primary sampling units. Note that these standard errors will usually be larger
than those computed by assuming simple random sampling.
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| American National Election Study for 1996.
The 1998 release of that dataset has been installed. This new release includes two new
weights which post-stratify the sample distribution to match the CPS distribution on
categories of education and age. |
November 1998
IDOC Released
The first release version of the IDOC programs and documentation has been completed.
IDOC is a joint project of the Census Bureau and CSM to develop
network-browsable documentation for CAI instruments written in the CASES Q language.
For more information, see the link to "Instrument Documentation" on our
"Projects" page.
February 1998
New look to SDA Web Site
The SDA Web Site has had an aesthetic make-over. The content remains
largely the same but we hope the new look will improve navigation between pages and make
it easier for our users to locate specific topics.
January 1998
All Datasets Converted
All of the online datasets available for analysis have now been converted to the new
SDA (CSA version 3) format. The last two datasets converted were the ANES cumulative file
for 1952-92, and the California 1% Microdata Sample from the 1990 Census.
Standard Errors Project
A project is underway to add the capability of calculating standard errors for complex
samples to the SDA comparison of means program. For details, select Projects
Under Development.
Links to Other Archives
Other data archives are beginning to use SDA. Our home page now provides links to some
of those archives that may be of general interest. See Other Survey
Data Archives.
October 1997
Most datasets converted
Most of the online datasets available for analysis have been converted to the new SDA
(CSA version 3) format.
New features available with SDA programs:
| New "Comparison of Correlations" program |
| Temporary recoding of variables |
| Output from the analysis programs is in HTML instead of basic ASCII.
Note that this new HTML output uses the tables mechanism. Old character-based browsers
(like LYNX) will not format that output into the appropriate columns. However, even
version 1 of Netscape will handle the output correctly. |
New Datasets
| 1996 American National Election Study |
| Health studies from Brazil (in Portuguese) |
July 1997
Downloading and Subsetting Now Standard
The procedures to allow downloading and subsetting of data files and documentation are
now included in the main archive as options for many of the datasets. Previously, these
options were in the section for "Projects Under Development."
Additional Version 3 (SDA) Programs
Work is continuing on the new version of the CSA programs for the Web. Since these
programs are designed specifically for the Web, and have a different interface and output
format than the older CSA programs, we intend to give this new set of programs a new name:
SDA -- Survey Documentation and Analysis.
Previously, the only program available to test was 'tables'. Additional programs and
test datasets will now begin to appear. To access these programs and datasets, see the
section for "Projects Under Development."
March 1997
New Location
You will have noticed that the CSA Demonstration Archive has moved to a new computer.
New Format for Demonstration Archive
The one-stage screen for selecting both a study and an action has been replaced by a
two-stage procedure. First you select a study (perhaps after viewing study abstracts), and
then you select the action (browse codebook, run a table, etc.).
This two-stage procedure is closer to what an actual data archive will need to do. The
one-stage procedure is still available as one of the "Other Versions of Data
Archive."
Projects Under Development
A new version of the procedures to create customized subsets of data files and
documentation has been installed. You can try it out on the CSA test dataset. In addition,
if you want to try it out on larger datasets, including the large GSS file, you can access
the procedure by selecting "Projects Under Development."
September 1996
New and Revised Datasets
| 1991 National Health Interview Survey (part) |
| 1994 National Multi-Investigator Survey |
New Page on Projects Under Development
| Tables with HTML output |
| Subset data files for downloading |
March 1996
New and Revised Datasets
| General Social Survey - Cumulative File 1972-94
 | This dataset is now online, ready for analysis |
| An HTML codebook is online |
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| California Census Public Use Sample - 1 percent
| Several introductory and appendex files have been added |
| Individual items have more complete descriptive text |
| A revised HTML codebook is online |
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Additional Documentation
| Examples of files used to set up an online archive |
| Brief documents about using CSA on the Web |
January 1996
The following documents were added for access online:
| New documents about how to set up datasets on the Web for browsing and analysis. |
| The CSA User's Guide, Chapters 1-5. (The documents on individual programs and topics,
included in the Manual as Chapter 6, were already available online.) |
New datasets were added:
| A 1994 survey carried out in Italy on regional and ethnic prejudice in that country; the
variable labels and other textual information are in English. |
| The same Italian survey, but with labels and other textual information in Italian. It is
instructive to see what does and does not remain in English in the codebook with the
current CSA software. |
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