Mandatory Content of an ISSP Country Data Deposit

Each country has to prepare its data set with the variable and value definitions of the ISSP standard setup, see this page for details.

Apart from the data itself, the following six items of documentation must be provided to meet mandatory ISSP requirements for a complete data deposit:

1. Study Monitoring Report (usually done by a WWW interface, please contact the ISSP team at GESIS-ZUMA for more information.)
2. Study Description (MS Word document). Revised, to be used for ISSP module 2006 and later.
3. National Population Characteristics (MS Word document)
4. A blank copy of your country's field questionnaire. If possible, include both the questionnaire parts with the module questions and with the background variables (PDF file preferred). If your country uses more than one language version, provide the field questionnaires for all languages used.
5. Notes to explain country specific aspects of administration and coding for variables of the module part.
6. New: The standardised Background Variables Documentation template (version 2, October 2006; MS Word document) is to be filled in with country specific information on administration, derivation, and coding of the ISSP background variables.

Our work is made much easier if you provide all of the above material at the same time, and - apart from the first item, which goes to the ISSP team at GESIS-ZUMA, - in one single delivery. An e-mail to isspservice<at>gesis<dot>org with a single ZIP compressed attachment is the best way to make your data deposit.

Background

The following pieces of text give more detail and reflect some of the long standing efforts to obtain good documentation:

Excerpts from minutes and rules of the ISSP (Budapest 1987 / Graz 1990 / Dublin 1991 / Bled 2004)

... Each nation would send to the Archive the following information in English:

1. sample size - issued and achieved
2. sample type - detailed sampling procedures, stratification factors, information on clustering
3. response rates and how they are calculated (so that alternative calculations can be made if desired to standardise)
4. known systematic properties of the sample: bias, differential attrition, sampling efficiency and information on design effects
5. weighting - full details of weighting and its effects
6. fieldwork dates
7. fieldwork methods - whether drop-off, postal, self-completion or personal interview etc.
8. context - other topics in the questionnaire, their placement vis a vis the ISSP module, etc.
9. known deviations from standard ISSP question wording must be clearly marked
10. a note on the language(s) used
11. a note on coding and editing procedures and a blank questionnaire should be sent to the Zentralarchiv for its files
12. the names of the principal investigators at each institution should be send to the Archive

This material would be compiled by the Archive for the codebook. The absence of any of these technical details would render the data set incomplete. This would mean that it could not be included in the combined data set until information was passed to the Archive.

...

Documented data files of each national group, together with the technical details of the survey methods, are to be sent to the Data Archive without delay (and certainly not later than nine months after fieldwork).

...

Reporting Response Rates

For modules from module 2006 and later, the ISSP has decided in 2004 that the AAPOR/WAPOR standards of reporting nonresponse numbers must be used. The new reporting scheme can be found in the updated version of the Study Description Form.