Editing Statistics and Statistical Programming (Winter 2017) (section)

== Finding a Dataset ==

In order to complete your project, you will each need a dataset. If you are at the stage of your career where you already have a dataset, great! If not, there are many datasets to draw from. Here are some ideas:

* Ask your advisor for a dataset they have collected and used in previous papers. Are there other variables you could use?
* If there's an author of a study you loved, you can send a polite email asking if they are able or willing to share an archival or replication version of the dataset used in their paper. Be very polite and make it clear that this is starting as a class project but that might turn into a paper for publication. Make your timeline clear. In communication, replication datasets are still very rare, so be prepared for a negative answer.
* Do some Google Scholar and normal Google searching for datasets in your research area. You'd be surprised at what's available.
* Take a look at datasets available in the [https://dataverse.harvard.edu/ Harvard Dataverse] (the largest collection of social science research data) or one of the other members of the [http://dataverse.org/ Dataverse network].
* Look at the collection of social scientific datasets at [https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/ ICPSR] (UW is a member). There are an enormous number of very rich datasets.
* Use the [http://scientificdata.isa-explorer.org/index.html ISA Explorer] to find datasets. Keep in mind the large majority of datasets it will search are drawn from the natural sciences.
* Set up a meeting with Jennifer Muilenburg — Data Curriculum and Communications Librarian who runs [https://www.lib.washington.edu/digitalscholarship/services/data research data services at the UW libraries]. Her email is: libdata@uw.edu I've have talked to her about this course and she is excited about meeting with you to help.
* [http://fivethirtyeight.com FiveThirtyEight.com] has published a [https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/fivethirtyeight/vignettes/fivethirtyeight.html GitHub repository and an R package] with pre-processed and cleaned versions of many of the datasets they use for articles published on their website. 

In general, you're responsible for make sure that you're on the right side of the human subject rules and that work is ethical. Class projects generally do not need IRB approval but I hope that each of your projects will turn into something more. If your study involves human subjects research, ''that'' work will need IRB oversight of some sort. In general, you can't do a class project with IRB approval and then retroactively get it later. Secondary analysis of anonymized data is generally not considered human subjects research but I strongly suggest that you get a determination from [https://www.washington.edu/research/hsd UW's Human Subject Division] before you start. For work that is not considered human subjects research, this can often happen in a few hours or days. If you need a faculty sponsor, that should ideally be your advisor. If that doesn't make sense for any of you, I'm happy to talk about serving as the faculty supervisor for the work.