Inventory of Community Data Sources
Other Websites of Interest
The following websites provide information related to social data, although they do not contain indicators at the local level.
A) National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (USA)
The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighbourhood information systems in local policy-making and community-building. There are now 24 city partners, institutions that have built advanced information systems with integrated and recurrently updated information on neighbourhood conditions in their cities. Indicators cover topics such as births, deaths, crime, health status, educational performance, public assistance, and property conditions.
A review of the NNIP concept and the approaches of its partners can be found in "Neighborhood Indicators: Taking Advantage of the New Potential," by Tom Kingsley.
B) Institute for Social Research (ISR), York University, Toronto, Ontario
“The Institute's purpose is to promote, undertake and critically evaluate applied social research….The Institute conducts research projects, provides consultation on research design, and undertakes data collection, data processing and statistical analysis on a fee-for-service basis…Survey data collected at the Institute and selected data sets from other major Canadian surveys are kept in the data archive at ISR for the purpose of secondary analysis and teaching.”
The Canadian Election Surveys (CES) and the Ethno-Racial Reports may be of particular interest.
C) Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR),
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
“Established in 1962, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research is an active partner in social science research and instruction throughout the world. ICPSR's unique combination of data resources, user support, and training in quantitative methods make it a vital resource for fostering inquiry and furthering the social sciences.”
“ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant.”
“A unit within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, ICPSR is a membership-based organization, with over 550 member colleges and universities around the world. A Council of leading scholars and data professionals guides and oversees the activities of ICPSR.”
The ICPSR holds extensive data archives from government, academic and other sources. Topics include: Aging and Health, Census, Child Care and Education, Criminology and Justice, Demography, General Social Science and Substance Abuse and Mental Health.
Links:
D) Metropolis Project
“Metropolis is an international network for comparative research and public policy development on migration, diversity, and immigrant integration in cities in Canada and around the world. The international arm of the Project involves partnerships with policy makers and researchers from over 20 countries, including the United States, most of Western Europe, Israel and Argentina, and from the Asia-Pacific region.” The project is coordinated by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
In addition to the many federal government partners, there are five Metropolis Centres across Canada:
- Metropolis Atlantic Centre of Excellence
- Montréal Centre for Inter-university Research on Immigration, Integration and Urban Dynamics
- CERIS, the Ontario Metropolis Centre
- Prairie Metropolis Centre
- Metropolis British Columbia, Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Diversity
E) World Values Survey
“The World Values Survey is a world-wide investigation of socio-cultural and political change. It is conducted by a network of social scientists at leading universities all around the world.”
“Interviews have been carried out with nationally representative samples of the publics of more than 80 societies on all six inhabited continents. A total of four waves have been carried out since 1981 making it possible to carry out reliable global cross-cultural analyses and analysis of changes over time. The World Values Survey has produced evidence of gradual but pervasive changes in what people want out of life. Moreover, the survey shows that the basic direction of these changes is, to some extent, predictable.”
The Principal Investigator for the Canadian component:
Neil Nevitte
Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
100 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Tel: 416-978-7170
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