ISSP Service Guide

Introduction to the ISSP

General information about the ISSP:

1. A short view on history
2. Organisational aspects
3. Conducting the survey programme

Search facilities allow to locate information in the documents.

• Full text search in codebooks and basic questionnaires, which are stored in PDF.
• Full text search in the study descriptions in the GESIS-ZA data holdings catalogue.
• The search facilities of ZACAT, the Archive's online analysis platform, offer detailed options to search for e.g. single questions or variables (based on English question texts), across modules.

Data & Documentation

This section gives an overview of the material supplied by the archive.

The data itself and documentation on the variable level are most easily accessed via ZACAT, the GESIS online analysis and download platform.

Similar information in a different format is also available on the Central Archive's web pages:

The Study Profiles offer compressed information about each ISSP module: participating countries, number of respondents per country, hyperlinks to codebooks, basic and country questionnaires, and also the most recent module specific errata information.

The codebooks can be browsed and printed online. They contain general information about the module, full text of all questions and answer categories as well as the unweighted frequencies broken down by countries.

There also is a matrix of modules/years and countries that participated in the respective module/year.

Order, Products & Charges

Options to order data and documentation via mail delivery; overview of products available and their prices. Note that most of the data are available online free of charge via ZACAT!

Social Monitoring

Information on work related to German ISSP modules.

Research related to methods used in ISSP modules

Relevant information on ISSP methods working groups, including

• Translation
• Questionnaire Design
• Non-response
• Demographics

Publications and Proceedings

Information about ISSP related publications and conference papers.

News

Most recent information about new products, new services, and selected errata concerning data or documentation.

Processing and Archiving Rules

This section mainly addresses ISSP members as data providers. It offers information about the different steps and regulations in the process of the integrating data and documentation:

• Archiving Rules, information on ISSP Standard Background Variables, template files for providing technical information on samples and data and background information about countries.
  • Requirements for a complete and timely country data deposit.
  • SPSS Standard Setup files for preparing data files according to ISSP standards.

Staff & Addresses

• Contact GESIS-ZA & GESIS-ZUMA
• Contact ISSP secretariat
• ISSP Listserver
  The ISSP Listserver started up in January 1997. Researchers active in cross-cultural survey research interested in joining should contact Janet Harkness.