The African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a Methods Workshop on Using pre-existing data for your own research, a guest session by Professor Alison Koslowski (School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh).
Collecting your own data to do a research project is not always the best option. When using semi-structured interviews, or fixed choice questionnaires, the small number of respondents you can get ready access to and the time you have available to process the information you gather, means that your data may tell you very little.
However, with a few basic skills that are easily picked up, you can access high-quality data, professionally assembled at substantial expense by expert organisations, and based on genuinely random samples that allow you to generalize to the population from which they have been drawn. Such data are very interesting to work with!
In this session, we consider the skills you need to search for, locate, access, download, manage, process, analyse and present data as empirical research evidence, respecting the confidentiality or other obligations set by data providers and maintaining the security and integrity of the data you use.
We will see if we can find you alternative sources of data that you might consider for your own research!
Preparation for the session:
Familiarise yourself with these resources and keep a note of any you find particularly helpful:
https://www.ncrm.ac.uk/resourc
https://www.ukdataservice.ac.u
For more information and to RSVP: naledi.mazibuko@wits.ac.za/ 011 717 4033
Date: Thursday 23 August 2018
Time: 14:00 to 16:00
Venue: ACMS Seminar Room 2163, South East Wing, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House, East Campus, University of the Witwatersrand
