Mandatory Content of an ISSP Country Data Deposit

Counting the national data set itself in, the following seven items must be provided to meet mandatory ISSP requirements for a complete data deposit:

1. A complete and checked data file in SPSS portable or SPSS system format. Each country has to prepare its country data set with the variable and value definitions of the respective ISSP standard setup for that module. Information on Coding Rules, in particular regarding standard background variables, is offered on a separate page. Please note that the definitions of and rules for background variables change with ISSP module 2010!
   
2. Study Monitoring Questionnaire, usually done by a WWW interface. Please contact the convenor of the ISSP methodology committee about access to the questionnaire.
3. Study Description (MS Word document), which collects basic information about the field procedures, sampling and weighting, and is later published as part of the dataset documentation.
4. National Population Characteristics (MS Word document), which describe benchmark distributions of core demographic variables for each country.
5. 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, please use “embedded fonts”). If your country uses more than one language version, provide the field questionnaires for all languages used. If your country uses computer assisted interviewing without printable questionnaires, provide the best approximation to a human readable questionnaire that your system can produce.
6. 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. (Note: this template is to be used for documenting the background variables according to the rules effective up to ISSP 2009.) The template for documenting background variable derivation according to the rules effective with ISSP 2010 and later can be downloaded here.
   
7. Notes to explain such country specific aspects of administration and coding which are not covered by any of the previous items.

Our work is made much easier if you provide all of the above material at the same time, and in one single delivery. An e-mail to the ISSP Data Service with a single ZIP compressed attachment is the best way to make your data deposit. The only exception to this is the Study Monitoring Questionnaire, which goes to the head of the ISSP Methodology Committee (currently Phil Gendall at Massey University, New Zealand).