The Library’s Research Data Services (RDS) Team offers support for data analysis tools & methods, mapping & data visualization, finding existing data & statistics, data collection, and data management
Visit this page for more information about our services, and browse our calendar for workshop listings.
Data is the raw numbers/materials collected that represent a measurement or variable; it is unorganized and unprocessed.
Statistics are generated from data by processing, organizing, analyzing, interpreting, and representing the data in a meaningful context.
The ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) database has over 9,000 datasets available spanning various social science disciplines and topics. The datasets in ICPSR are primarily quantitative, but it also includes some qualitative datasets.
ACCESSING ICPSR DATA: Check out this page for all the ins and outs of accessing ICPSR data.
SEARCHING TIPS: You can keyword search for datasets, but using the browsing options is sometimes more efficient. For about 76% of their datasets they also have variable-level/question-level search capabilities.
HELP RESOURCES: Check out some of ICPSR's YouTube videos for searching tips.
The General Social Survey (GSS) "takes the pulse of America" on a vast number of topics, with national-level data collected beginning in 1972 to present.* A great resource for any discipline!
To identify variables for the entire dataset and/or specific years:
To do data online analysis with no need for downloading or special software:
To download data for analysis in statistical software (e.g., SPSS, SAS, Stata, R):
Don't like the SDA 4.0 interface for exploring the GSS? Try out the GSS Data Explorer and its help resources.
Need assistance? Ask Mandy, Data Services Librarian (aswygarthobaugh@gsu.edu)
* 1972 - 2014 data available for analysis as of 4/6/2016.