Modern researchers need to have an up-to-date understanding of working with research data. This relates equally to the material they create themselves and that obtained from other sources. Academic institutions, funding bodies and even publishers are now expecting competence in these issues. This workshop will provide a grounding in the different ways quantitative and qualitative data is being made available to benefit researchers. By the end of the session you will also have some insight into how your own future work could add to the process and become part of the research discourse.

The session will also provide an overview of macro and micro data sources available at the University of Oxford, including national data archives, subscription services, business data, and offers some pointers for further searching. We will introduce you to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Eurostat, Researchfish and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative’s online interactive databank and global Multidimensional Poverty Index; we will explore specialist sources for business and economic data subscribed to by Oxford University; we will consider the value of resources for informing research design and methodological innovation; and we will look at data management and cybersecurity.

This workshop will be most beneficial to those researchers planning to use secondary data sources (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) as part of their research or who wish to learn more about the potential of open data platforms and data archives.