Timeframe
2007-2008
Funding
Tertiary Education Commission
COMPASS staff
Peter Davis
Daniel Patrick
Martin von Randow
Collaborators
University of Auckland
Paul Bonnington
Nick Jones
Andrey Kharuk
Australian Social Science Data Archive
Sophie Holloway
Description
This work saw us investigate the feasibility of setting up a data archive for social sciences surveys in New Zealand, working in collaboration with the Broadband-enabled Science & Technology GRID (BeSTGRID) team within the University. We used capacity on the Kiwi Advanced Research & Education Network (KAREN) and utilised software solutions that were well-established in the field internationally.
The Australian Social Science Data Archive (ASSDA) had been holding various New Zealand survey datasets while there was no equivalent service domestically. Their service used NESSTAR (Network Extended Social Science Tools & Resources) software to provide an online interface that enabled browsing survey datasets, and a permissions structure that enabled people to access the underlying datasets, some of which required payment as per agreements with the people involved. This was all far more advanced than what was available in New Zealand at the time – Henry Barnard’s New Zealand Social Research Data Archive (NSRDA) was at least online, but it was an entirely text-based interface.
ASSDA helped us set up our own data archive using NESSTAR, which was branded as the New Zealand Social Science Data Service (NZSSDS). They gave us all of the files associated with the New Zealand surveys that they had been holding, which included the New Zealand Election Study going back to 1990, and we added datasets from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from Phil Gendall at Massey University and the World Internet Project New‑Zealand from Charles Crothers at Auckland University of Technology. We also added data we were associated with, including from the National Primary Medical Care Survey and its regional predecessors.
The NZSSDS did not see significant uptake. We used it ourselves in teaching, enabling students to select a dataset to explore, but overall it was not sustainable given the annual licence fee for NESSTAR, and the service was shut down in 2012. A few years later, the University implemented a data archiving solution through Figshare, where the datasets we had taken responsibility for found a new home (https://auckland.figshare.com/COMPASS).