Data Services   Tags: data, data_services  

The Data Services guide describes services available to assist users in finding and using data.

Contents to date include:

• Data Computing Resources discusses library and other computing resources useful for data analysis
• Secure Data Facility is a space for accessing restricted data
• Unique Data Resources describes special locally held datasets that are otherwise hard to find
• Decennial Census Data is a guide to the US Census of Population and Housing through the years
• National Data Archives helps you find data archives around the world

See Data by Subject (under construction) for suggested resources categorized by academic discipline.

See Data Management for advice on handling your research data.

See the Rutgersdata blog for ongoing announcements of newly available datasets and other news.

Data Services helps you find and access data, primarily numeric.  Data Services makes selected software available, purchases data sets, hold occasional workshops on data topics, and helps users with databases and data archives that Rutgers has subscriptions and membership to, such as ICPSR.

Data Services is not a statistical consulting service and can neither perform analysis for you, nor advise on correct analysis techniques.  But Data Services will get you to the data!

R Workshops

R is freely available, open source statistical software that has been widely adopted in the research community.  Due to its open nature, thousands of add-ons ("packages" in R parlance) are available that handle many specialized functions and implement the latest statistical techniques.  Ryan Womack, the Data Librarian, is presenting a three-part workshop series, "An Introduction to R" covering

• Statistical Techniques: Descriptive Statistics, Regression, Significance, Finding Additional Packages
• Graphics:  comparison of graphing techniques of basic R, lattice, and ggplot2 packages
• Data Manipulation:  Data Import and Transformation

There is also a special topics workshop on Time Series in R, covering basic techniques of working with time series data.  This workshop assumes introductory knowledge of R at the level covered in the Introduction to R sessions.

SAS Workshop

A single session introducing the basic features of the SAS statistical software system is offered.

SPSS Workshop

A single session introducing the basic features of the SPSS statistical software system is also offered.

The Spring 2013 schedule for New Brunswick is as follows.  All workshops will be held at the Library of Science and Medicine's Special Collections Room, on Mondays from 3:30 to 5 pm.  Participants can bring their own laptops or use the laptops provided by the Libraries.  The workshop dates are:

• Intro to SPSS - January 28
• Intro to SAS - February 4
• Intro to R - Statistical Techniques: February 11
• Intro to R - Graphics: February 18
• Intro to R - Data Manipulation: February 25
• Time Series in R: March 4

Each workshop is self-contained and will be hands-on with the software.  A beginner would want to attend all three, but if there is one aspect you want to brush up on, it is fine to attend that single session as well.  All sessions are first come, first served.  If you have R on your laptop, feel free to bring it too.  There is no need to register.

Please comment on the pages in this guide so that we can improve them!