Newsletter Number 5 – Spring 2004
This is a newsletter for academic researchers in the Toronto region
using, or those interested in using, Statistics Canada confidential
microdata files. The Toronto RDC is a secure social science
research facility located at the University of Toronto that offers
researchers from many academic disciplines an opportunity to analyze
large-scale, longitudinal Statistics Canada data sets in a modern,
well-equipped computer lab setting. Please see “RDC Proposal
Submission Process” near the end of this newsletter for information
about applying.
The Toronto Region - Statistics Canada RDC is a partnership of the
Universities of Toronto, Ryerson and York, in a national initiative
with Statistics Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, with major funding from the Canadian Foundation of
Innovation.
Please feel free to forward this email newsletter to anyone you think
may be interested in the RDC Program. Thank you!
Contents:
1. Latest News
2. Dataset holdings
update
3. Hours of operation
4. Workshops at the
RDC
5. Conferences
6. Data Analysis and
Statistics Seminars
7. RDC Proposal
Submission Process
8. Contact us
1) Toronto RDC
Latest News
Professor Blair Wheaton, Academic Director of the Toronto Region
Statistics Canada Research Data Centre from July 1, 2001 to December
31, 2003, has accepted a position as Chair of the Department of
Sociology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Wheaton was
instrumental in the creation of the Toronto Region RDC, and spent a
great many hours securing funding and poring over every detail of the
Centre, from the equipment to be used to the furniture to the design of
the Centre itself. We thank Blair for his forward thinking,
commitment to the Toronto RDC and the RDC Program in general, and for
making a lasting imprint on this world-class research facility.
As of January, 2004, capably stepping into the Academic Director’s role
is Professor John Hagan. Dr. Hagan brings a wealth of research
experience, an impressive academic record, and a strong commitment to
the long-term viability of the Centre. Dr. Hagan has received the
1998 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social
Problems for his book Mean Streets: Youth Crime and Homelessness, and
the 1997 Edwin H. Sutherland Award from the American Society of
Criminology. We welcome Dr. Hagan to the Toronto Region RDC and
are happy that the Toronto RDC, under John’s able directorship,
continues to be very well represented in the academic community.
An RDC Baby! The Toronto Region RDC is happy to announce that
Tina Hotton, RDC Analyst, gave birth to a healthy baby girl on December
2, 2003. Alexandra Clare Mahony was 7 pounds, 8 ounces at birth
and both mother and baby are doing very well.
As well, the Toronto Region RDC welcomes Glenn Stalker, PhD Candidate
in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto to his
position as RDC Analyst. Glenn’s research focuses on time-use
issues and incorporates data from the Canadian General Social Survey
(GSS). Glenn was a recipient of the 2002-2003 Statistics Canada
Research Stipend, which allows Ph.D. candidates the opportunity to
conduct research on Statistics Canada master datasets in Ottawa.
Glenn would be happy to talk to prospective researchers about using the
NLSCY, YITS/PISA, CCHS 1.1 or LSIC data sets at the Toronto Region RDC.
Last but not least, the Toronto RDC welcomed Selahadin Ibrahim as the
new Extended Hours employee. Selahadin is a research associate
with the Institute for Work and Health, and holds a lecturer status
position in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University
of Toronto.
The number of research projects at the Toronto RDC has grown to nearly
120. These projects involve well over 200 graduate students and
faculty members from the University of Toronto, York University,
Ryerson and other universities. This is by far the single largest
concentration of research at any of the 9 RDCs across the country.
2) Dataset Holdings
Update
The RDC houses the master files from 6 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), the
newly-added Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants in Canada (LSIC) 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).
Please see the section: “How to Apply” on our website
(http://sites.utoronto.ca/rdc) if you would like to apply to conduct
research at the Toronto RDC using any of these datasets.
a) Longitudinal
Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC)
The Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, conducted jointly by
Statistics Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, is a
comprehensive survey designed to study how recent immigrants adjust to
living in Canada and to provide information on the factors that can
help or hinder this adjustment.
The survey is longitudinal - the same respondents are interviewed six
months, two years and four years after arriving in Canada, to provide
an update on their experiences in Canada. While full adaptation
may take generations to achieve, the LSIC is designed to examine the
process during the critical first four years of settlement, whereby
newcomers establish economic, social, and cultural ties to Canadian
society.
Traditional data sources often provide only a limited range of
immigrant settlement experiences, leaving unknown the actual trajectory
followed by each individual and how integration experiences influence
each other. By examining newcomers' progress over time, LSIC will
assist researchers and policy-makers in going beyond existing
descriptions of immigrant integration outcomes to an examination of the
means by which newcomers achieve these outcomes.
More information can be found on the Statistics Canada website
(http://www.statcan.ca/english/sdds/4422.htm).
b) NLSCY
Synthetic Dataset (Cycle 4)
A synthetic version of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and
Youth (Cycle 4 Secondary) has been released. These files are
useful for preparing syntax for submission to the Statistics Canada
Remote Date Access service or for use in the Research Data Centres. To
obtain a copy of the NLSCY synthetic files, please contact your
university’s data services librarian. Researchers at the
University of Toronto may contact Laine Ruus at the University of
Toronto Data Library (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/).
3) Hours of
Operation at the Toronto Region RDC
The hours of operation of the Toronto RDC are 8:30am to 4:30pm
Monday-Friday. We are currently in the process of hiring an
Extended Hours employee, which will allow the Centre to remain open
later each day. Please see the “Hours of Operation” page on our
website for current information.
4) Workshops at the
RDC
The Toronto RDC has recently hosted 2 workshops that were well attended:
a) Uses of
Social Science Data in Legal Settings
On January 19, 2004, Toronto RDC Academic Director John Hagan and
Toronto RDC Research and Computing Consultant Dave Haans provided
students in Dr. Hagan’s Sociology of Law course with an overview of the
usefulness of academic research in the justice system.
b) Statistics Canada
Presentation on the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada
On April 16, 2004, Ryerson University hosted a presentation by
Statistics Canada on the new Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to
Canada (LSIC). Presentations were made by Sylvain Tremblay,
Content Manager with LSIC at the Labour and Household Surveys Branch of
the Special Surveys Division and Owen Phillips, Methodologist with LSIC
at the Methodology Branch of the Social Survey Methods Division.
Also in attendance was Jessie-Lynn MacDonald, Project Manager with LSIC.
The presentation was specifically meant to benefit those researchers at
Ryerson University who will take part in Ryerson’s unique Master of
Arts in Immigration and Settlement Studies graduate program commencing
this fall. Among the 28 in attendance were researchers from
Ryerson, York and the University of Toronto, as well as 4 Toronto RDC
staff members.
Sylvain Tremblay presented a detailed account of the survey content and
change in the data collection instrument between cycles. Owen
Phillips addressed methodological issues with respect to sampling
design and provided a detailed account on the appropriate use of sample
weights and variance estimation and additionally addressed necessary
considerations when assessing the quality of estimates. Glenn
Stalker, Toronto RDC Analyst, presented information on accessing the
RDC, to assist in the recruitment of new researchers.
Workshops will continue on through the summer and fall of 2004.
Please check the “Events” section of our website for more information.
5) RDC Conferences
a) Toronto Region
RDC Dataset Conference Series
On June 29, 2004, the Toronto Region RDC will host the first day-long
conference for and by current Toronto RDC researchers in which
researchers will have the opportunity to make short presentations on
their research-in-progress, gain feedback from other researchers, and
generally discuss research issues in a collaborative environment.
Graduate students and other researchers seeking experience giving talks
and presenting papers are especially welcome. The conference
series will focus on the RDC’s core datasets; first to be considered
will be the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth
(NLSCY). Please contact Dave Haans (dave.haans@utoronto.ca;
416-946-8106) or Glenn Stalker (glenn.stalker@utoronto.ca;
416-946-8321) if you would like to participate and/or attend, or to
request more information.
b) Statistics Canada
Research Data Centres (RDC) Second Annual Network Conference at the
University of Calgary from September 20-21, 2004
The Prairie Research Data Centre will be hosting the 2nd Annual Network
Conference at the University of Calgary from September 20-21,
2004. The theme of this year’s conference is “From Human
Development and Health Research to Public Policy:
The Challenge of Knowledge Transfer.” For more information,
please contact Gus Brannigan at the Prairie Region Research Data Centre
(403-220-7466).
6) Data Analysis and
Statistics Seminars
a) 2004 Quebec
Inter-university Centre for Social Statistics (QICSS) Summer School at
the University of Montreal
Primarily for Quebec researchers, the QICSS offers a number of training
sessions in statistics.
June 7th-11th: Introduction à la modélisation
d’équations structurales. To be presented in French.
This session will be run by Michel Préville, professor at the
Research Centre on Aging, Université de Sherbrooke.
Lectures will be held at the QICSS offices. The course
description and the registration form, both in French, are now
available.
June 14th-23rd: Longitudinal Data Analysis: Event-history
Analysis. To be presented in French and English with simultaneous
translation. This training session will be run by Jean Renaud,
professor, Département de sociologie and director of
CÉETUM, Université de Montréal,
Céline Le Bourdais, professor at INRS-UCS, QICSS director and
CIED regular member, Johanne Boisjoly, professor at the
Département des sciences humaines, Université du
Québec à Rimouski, and Rajulton Fernando, professor,
Center for Population Studies, University of Western Ontario.
This intensive course will be given at the UNESCO Statistical
Institute, in Montreal. The course description, registration
form, and syllabus are now available.
August 2nd-12th: Innovations méthodologiques et statistiques
sociales. Analyse quantitative des données biographiques.
To be presented in French. Presented by QICSS, in collaboration with
the Département de sociologie de l'Université Laval and
l'Unité d'Enseignement et de Recherche en démographie
(UERD) of l'Université de Ouagadougou, this training session
will be run by professor Richard arcoux, Département de
sociologie de l'Université Laval. This session will be held at
Pavillon La Laurentienne, Cité universitaire, at
Université Laval in Quebec City. The course description
and registration form, both in French, are now available.
Please consult the QICSS web page for more information on any of these
seminars (http://www.ciqss.umontreal.ca/activities_training.htm).
b) CRISP Data
Analysis and Statistics Seminar (DASS) at the University of New
Brunswick.
The Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy (CRISP) Data Analysis
and Statistics Seminar (DASS) is a seminar being offered on June 14-18,
2004 at the University of New Brunswick which is designed to assist new
Canadian researchers gain skills necessary to analyze the NLSCY or PISA
data sets. The seminar will cover the use of classical regression
techniques (multiple regression and logistic regression) and multilevel
regression techniques (hierarchical linear models). For more
information please see the CRISP DASS website
(http://sites.unb.ca/crisp/dass.html).
c) 21st
International Methodology Symposium in Gatineau, Quebec, hosted by
Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada is hosting the 21st International Methodology
Symposium on the theme of “Innovative Methods for Surveying
Difficult-to-Reach Populations.” The symposium will be held on
November 3 to 5, 2004 in Gatineau, Quebec (10 minutes from downtown
Ottawa). The first day will feature workshops on indirect
sampling, data mining and neural networks. For the following two
days, session topics will include questionnaire design, sampling
issues, data collection and analysis, and surveys on Aboriginal
peoples. For more information, please visit the Statistics Canada
website
(http://www.statcan.ca/english/conferences/symposium2004/index.htm).
7) 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.
The process is done through an on-line application system accessible
at: http://www.statcan.ca/english/rdc/apply.htm.
For more information on the Toronto RDC and how to apply for access,
please visit our website at: http://sites.utoronto.ca/rdc.
8) Contact us
For further information on the RDC or on any other item in this
newsletter, please contact:
John Hagan, Academic Director
Toronto Region-Statistics Canada RDC
Robarts Library, Room 7032
130 St. George St.
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8107
Fax: 416-946-8104
Veronica Yei, RDC Analyst
Toronto Region-Statistics Canada RDC
Robarts Library, Room 7032
130 St. George St.
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8105
Fax: 416-946-8104
Glenn Stalker, RDC Analyst
Toronto Region-Statistics Canada RDC
Robarts Library, Room 7032
130 St. George St.
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8321
Fax: 416-946-8104
The Toronto RDC Steering Committee can be contacted through:
Susan Murphy, RDC Financial Administrator
University of Toronto
222 College Street, Suite 106
Toronto, ON
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:
Dave Haans, Research and Computing Consultant
Toronto Region-Statistics Canada RDC
Robarts Library, Room 7032
130 St. George St.
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A5
Tel: 416-946-8106
Fax: 416-946-8104