Processing, Monitoring, & Depositing of National ISSP Data

This Page

This page gives an overview of the process of preparing and depositing national ISSP data to the ISSP archive, and of providing regular monitoring material for the purposes of the ISSP methods committee. Beyond this outline, selected parts of the depositing and monitoring process are covered on separate sub-pages which offer relevant technical and procedural information.

Background

When dealing with international comparative data, data sets and documentation must be seen as two sides of the same coin. Even though ISSP members make huge efforts to produce comparable data in each country, there still remains a remarkable amount of country specific peculiarities in the contributions to the final, international data set. These country specific peculiarities have either to be harmonised or to be documented, as they provide vital information for secondary analysts. Therefore, ISSP method groups and the ISSP archive have developed a set of procedures and instruments to take care of orderly technical preparation of national data sets and to allow for systematic collection of required documentation items.

Involved Institutions

Producing an analysis-ready ISSP data file involves many different partners. The ISSP General Assembly concludes the design phase of an ISSP module by deciding about the base (also: basic/standard/source) questionnaire of that ISSP module roughly a year before the module is fielded. For example the base questionnaire of ISSP 2009, Social Inequality, was finalised in spring 2008. ISSP member countries then translate the British English base questionnaire to their local language and field it in time to meet the depositing deadlines described in the next paragraph. Besides the base questionnaire, countries also have to collect responses on a set of ISSP standard background variables for each module.
The national data are then deposited to the ISSP archive (institutionally, this is the GESIS Data Archive, formerly ‘Zentralarchiv’). The archive (in cooperation with its Spanish partner institution, ASEP/JDS) integrates the national data sets into one analysis file, compiles the documentation and distributes all ISSP data to the scientific community. Study monitoring information is compiled by the convenor of the ISSP methodology committee.

Time Schedule and Deadlines

According to the ISSP Working Principles, the data and the complete documentation must arrive at the archive by September 1st of the calendar year following the year of the data collection for the respective module. E.g., a national data set from the ISSP 2007 module must have been deposited by September 1st, 2008. Another time restriction is that national data must be deposited without delay, but no later than nine months after the fieldwork in that country. A data set will be regarded as not having been deposited until the complete mandatory documentation has also been provided.
All data sets being archived by this time (September 1st) are guaranteed to be integrated into the module’s data file. The integrated data file of a given module can usually be released with full documentation three to five months after the last country data set has been deposited to the archive.
If individual countries provide revised versions of data sets which have been deposited before, these revisions can only be incorporated if delivered on the usual schedule and if the deviations from previous versions are exactly documented. The date of the last revision will be counted as the formal depositing date when checking compliance with ISSP rules.
Country data sets which are not completely deposited before April 15th of the second year after the module's year can definitely not be included into the final integrated file.

What Constitutes an ISSP Data Deposit?

National ISSP data deposits have three core elements: First, the data files themselves; second, a set of documentation materials which allows secondary analysts to fully understand the data down to the level of individual response categories in each participating country; third, a set of documentation materials which helps the ISSP methods committee to monitor compliance with the methodological rules of the ISSP. Details about preparing these core elements are distributed about the following pages as described here:

  • A page on General Materials collects a set of materials (forms and templates) necessary for providing documentation items which are always part of a member’s data deposit and ensure compliance with the methodological rules of the ISSP. See also Coding Standards below.
  • A page on Module Standard Setups collects another set of materials necessary for preparing a data deposit, most prominently the so-called Standard Setup files used to define the SPSS data file. Unlike the General Materials, these materials are specific to a given ISSP module, i.e., they change every year.
  • A page on Coding Standards gives more detail about the coding standards to be used in files prepared for ISSP depositing. In particular, it offers the definition of coding frames for the mandatory ISSP Background Variables. Further, information on some common standard codes (countries, occupations, etc.) is provided here.

With questions on the process of data depositing, contact the ISSP Data Service.

Markus Quandt