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Archive Program / About: Activities

1. Working with customers and informing the academic community on the Social Data Archive

This is a priority direction for the Archive activities. At the first stage, when the project was implemented within the VCIOM, a large collection was created; there was not task then to disseminate the information and attract customers. However, the dissemination of information is an important task of every archive. Therefore, within the IISP, the Archive Program has sought (1) to inform the academic community, the faculty of the social sciences departments, graduate and postgraduate students on the Archive; and (2) to organize the communication of Archive data to the customers.

• In November 2002, a methodological seminar was held to inform the public about the Archive materials and show the main principles of working with the Archive data. There were 42 participants at the seminar.



• In November 2002, in partnership with the Grants Program, a small grants competition Social Policy: Secondary Socio-Economic Analysis was announced. 37 proposals were submitted, and 5 grants were made.



• In February 2003, the first issue of the Social Data Archive Information Bulletin Sophist was published. The bulletin consists of four parts and has permanent sections: Social Data Archive News; Analysis of Archive Materials; Life of Foreign Archives; IASSIST Information. It also comments on important current events.



• To advance sociological education, data of the VCIOM Monitoring Survey of Economic and Social Changes were passed to the Novosibirsk State University. Students of the Sociology and Political Science Departments of the State University - Higher School of Economics were proposed to write a course paper on the basis of Archive data (24 papers were written). We pay a special attention to this direction, because learning the skills of secondary analysis when a student forms the future demand for the information stored in sociological archives.

2. Enlarging Archive Collections

• We expect over 30 surveys to be submitted to the Archive soon. In 2002-2003, the Archive continued to receive data from its "old" (pilot stage) depositors: six new surveys from the Institute of Sociology RAS, six new VCIOM monitoring surveys, two waves of the ISSP international survey.



• The range of depositors whose work can be useful for the academic community has been extended. First of all, we addressed grantees of the Social Policy: Challenges of the XXI Century program, other charitable foundations' programs and small research groups. In 2002, data of the research on poverty (headed by M. Mozhina) conducted within the First competition Social Policy: Challenges of the XXI Century was added to the Archive. Now, the data are being standardized, and afterwards it would be available to the customers. Moreover, the results of the research on middle classes conducted by the Moscow Carnegie Center would be added to the Archive.

3. Collaboration with Foreign Archives and International Organizations

• To work more effectively, new archives of the European Community countries have established a network. Although Russia is not a member of the EC, the Social Data Archive has been offered the status of an associated member in the network. In September 2002, a seminar was held in Bucharest, at which the main principles of collaboration and catalog standards were discussed. A proposal is being prepared to the EC bodies to ask for financial support for the project.
• Since 2001, the Social Data Archive is a member of the International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST). In June 2002, the Archive staff presented promotional material at the IASSIST Annual conference. This year, an oral presentation would be made at the Annual conference.
• An English version of the information bulletin is sent to IASSIST members and other networks of sociological data archives.

4. Collaboration with the University Information System 'Russia'

• The Social Data Archive prepares linear distributions the surveys' data and submits them to the UIS 'Russia'; the work will be finished in 2003. This would increase the number of people having access to the Archive data.



• Questionnaires stored in the Archive are being automatically indexed to make them searchable by the UIS rubricator.

5. Modenization of Methodology and Learning International Standards

• Creation of codebooks. In international practice, every archived material is provided with a detailed description, a codebook in a special data description language. The Archive staff use DDI, the most wide-spread language and start to create coodbooks. There would be prepared more than 20 codebooks.



• Further development of the program base. Particular attention would be paid to the module of on-line linear distributions.