UWG Joins Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research

Through a joint effort between the Ingram Library and the College of Social Sciences, the University of West Georgia has recently joined The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research for the 2011-2012 academic school year. The ICPSR will grant all faculty, staff, and students full access via any campus computer to this research data archive that contains more than 7,500 research studies.

The archive provides numeric raw data that can be used for multiple projects, including reports, research studies, figures and publications. The consortium grants access to special topic archives as well. Special topic archives include, but are not limited to, the Health and Medical Care Archive, Child Care and Early Education, Data Sharing for Demographic Research, the Minority Data Resource Center, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive.

In addition to being an excellent research resource, the consortium also offers teaching tools, including a learning center that provides tools to help instructors and professors teach social sciences’ core principles. For those interested in learning more about quantitative methods, the consortium has the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research, which offers courses in research design, data analysis, statistics, and social science methodology.

To help those who may need extra help or support in finding the appropriate data for their projects, the consortium offers user support.

The university is set to have access to the archive by July 1. Charlie Sicignano, of the library, will be sending announcements concerning the launch date.

More information concerning the ICPSR and its capabilities can be found at its website.