The
2. Dataset
holdings update
3. Longitudinal
Survey of Immigrants to
4. Extended
hours operation
5. Workshops at
the RDC
6. Additions to
the
7. University
Affairs RDC article
8. Data
Analysis and Statistics Seminar
9. RDC Proposal
Submission Process
10. Contact us
1)
The
The number of research projects at the Toronto RDC
has grown
to 89 as of August 2003. These projects
involve over 100 graduate students and faculty members from the
A new Internet Room was built in late 2002 to free
space for
another Analyst’s office. We thank the
researchers at the Toronto RDC for their patience during our expansion!
The Toronto RDC website was updated to include
“What’s New”
and “Hours of Operation” pages, to improve readability for those with
visual
impairments, and to facilitate the inclusion of recently updated
Statistics
Canada RDC web pages. We hope the new
format makes the site easier to use and more informative overall: http://sites.utoronto.ca/rdc.
Finally, a welcome to current and new graduate
students
attending the University of Toronto, York University and Ryerson
University. We hope you consider
utilizing the RDC for your thesis or dissertation work.
2)
Dataset
Holdings Update
The RDC houses the master files from 5 core
longitudinal
surveys, and 1 cross-sectional survey: the National Population Health
Survey
(NPHS), The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), the National
Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), the Youth in
Transition
survey (YITS), the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES), and the
cross-sectional
Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS).
In addition to the Toronto RDC's core surveys, researchers with approved projects may also access other survey master files, such as the General Social Survey (GSS).
In the near future, the Longitudinal Survey of
Immigrants in
Canada (LSIC) will be added to our core data holdings here at the
Toronto RDC
(see the next item for more on this newly released survey).
a) NLSCY
Cycle 4 Available
The Toronto RDC recently acquired Cycle 4 of the National Longitudinal
Survey
of Children and Youth (NLSCY).
Additionally, data from Cycles 1-3, as well as the survey weights have
been revised and are available.
Statistics
b) NPHS
Relationship Data Available
Researchers using the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) can now
access the household member and relationship files for Cycles 1 to 4 of
the
National Population Health Survey. These files provide information on
the
relationship between the household reference person and the household
member
who is selected for the health questionnaire.
For more information, please contact Veronica Yei at 416-946-8105.
c) WES
2001 and revised data now available
Researchers working with the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) may
now
access the data for 2001 and revised data for 1999 and 2000. A
number of important changes have taken
place in the 1999 and 2000 data. For
more information on changes to the WES, please contact Veronica Yei at
416-946-8105.
d) YITS
Cycle 1 18-20 Year-old Cohort Available
Researchers analyzing the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) may now
access
the Cycle 1 18-20 year-old cohort. The previous microdata release in
2002
included only a selection of variables. For
more information, please contact Veronica Yei at 416-946-8105.
3)
Longitudinal
Survey of Immigrants to
From the Statistics
“Newcomers to
The publication Highlights of the Longitudinal Survey of
Immigrants to
4)
Extended
Hours at the
As part of a pilot project in response to
researchers who
have expressed a desire to have the RDC open later each day, the hours
of
operation of the Toronto RDC were extended to 7:30pm Monday-Thursday,
and to
6pm on Friday, from March to August of this year.
The Extended Hours pilot allowed researchers to keep more
flexible hours at the Toronto RDC, and will be re-introduced shortly.
The new Extended Hours will extend Toronto
RDC operating hours from
5)
Workshops at
the RDC
Since the last newsletter in the fall of 2002, the Toronto RDC has hosted 4 workshops that were all extremely well attended.
b)
Adam
Wronski, Chief of Content and Analysis for SLID, and Heather Lathe,
Senior
Analyst with Income Statistics Division, came to the Toronto RDC the
afternoon
of Wednesday, December 11 and met with current SLID users, and
researchers
interested in learning more about the survey.
c)
Dave Haans
hosted an introductory SAS workshop. This
workshop was meant to help researchers at the RDC acquaint or
re-acquaint
themselves to the SAS programming language. In this workshop, the
basics of the
SAS programming language were covered, including creating variables,
reading in
raw text files, modifying SAS data sets, merging SAS data sets, and
printing
output in useful ways.
d)
The March, 2003 issue of University Affairs (http://www.universityaffairs.ca)
featured a lengthy article titled “Mining for Gold” which discussed the
Research Data Centres across the country, their history and the types
of
research conducted in them. A handy link
to the above article appears on the “News” page of our website.
Canadian Research Institute for
Social Policy
November 1- 5, 2003
Sponsored by the Social Sciences
and
Humanities Research Council
The Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy is pleased to
announce
that application forms for the 2003 Data and Statistics
Seminars
(DASS) sponsored by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council
(SSHRC)
are now available on our website. Researchers and analysts
interested in
applying to this seminar can learn more about our training program
at http://www.unb.ca/crisp.
The primary objective of the DASS is to equip new and beginning
Canadian
researchers with the quantitative skills they require to effectively
understand, analyze and utilize survey data available to them through
Statistics Canada. We also hope that these seminars will contribute to
the
development of an infra-structure for two of Statistic
The DASS
curriculum includes instruction on: scaling of quantitative data based
on Item
Response Theory; techniques for handling missing data; basic methods
for
longitudinal surveys, including the use of plausible values and design
weights;
regression techniques for continuous, ordinal, and categorical data;
and
hierarchical linear models (HLM). As part of this training, data from
the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the National
Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) will be used
extensively to
illustrate how these quantitative techniques can be applied to large,
complex
datasets. Participants in the training program will receive an
extensive
set of syntax files for the NLSCY data developed by the staff at CRISP.
Apply on-line at http://sites.unb.ca/crisp
for this
opportunity to join scholars who share your interest in
social policy
concerns. You will work with knowledgeable and experienced
researchers in a collaborative, hands-on environment where you
can learn new analytical methods and useful strategies
for
interpreting and reporting your results. The number of
participants for
this program will be limited to 20, and preference will be given to
those who
have not previously attended a
We encourage you to please pass along this message to any colleagues
you feel
may be interested in this training opportunity. If you require
further
assistance please contact:
Beth Fairbairn
Assistant to the Director
Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy
University of New Brunswick
http://sites.unb.ca/crisp
Tel: 506-447-3178
Fax: 506-447-3427
9) RDC proposal submission process
To access the
RDC, researchers must submit a project proposal to a review committee
operating
under the auspices of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council
(SSHRC) and Statistics Canada.
10) Contact us
Toronto
Robarts Library, Room 7032
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8321
Fax: 416-946-8104
Veronica Yei, RDC Analyst
Robarts Library, Room 7032
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8105
Fax: 416-946-810
The Toronto RDC Steering Committee can be
contacted through:
Susan Murphy
M5T 3J1
Tel: 416-978-7037
Fax: 416-978-4771
For further information on computing equipment and
analytical
software available at the RDC, please contact:
Robarts Library, Room 7032
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8106
Fax: 416-946-8104