November 2021

The AERA-ICPSR-NSF PEERS Data Hub is holding a no-fee workshop, “Building Big Data Capacity for Education and Social Science Research Communities Using Restricted Administrative Data,” on December 9, 1:00–4:00 p.m. ET. The webinar will broadcast live on Zoom. Those interested in attending can register here.

The workshop, taught by Jason Owen-Smith (University of Michigan), uses a new administrative dataset about academic research and graduate education—UMETRICS: Universities Measuring the Effects of Research on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Science—to introduce key themes in and methods for “big data” research in education and social science fields.

The “data revolution” has made a wide range of new types of large-scale data such as administrative, social media, textual, or electronic data available to researchers in education and social science fields. But unlike more commonly used quantitative datasets such as those derived from surveys, these “found” data were not collected and designed for research. This workshop will illustrate how “found” data can be used to examine topics in STEM education research.

Through lecture and hands-on examples the workshop will focus on:

• The logic of inquiry for research using large-scale administrative data, which differ in important ways from quantitative research using designed data such as surveys
• Processes and tools for data linkage to integrate information drawn from multiple sources
• The ethics of working with large-scale data, with particular attention to privacy and confidentiality
• Examples of STEM education research using UMETRICS that will serve as examples of how linked administrative data can inform both current and new lines of research

Graduate students, early career scholars, senior researchers, and others who are interested in using administrative data and new types of large scale data to address STEM education research questions will find this workshop useful. All aspects of the workshop will be accessible to those with little to no technical background in working with large scale data. Those who are experienced with computational tools and methods will find the value in learning about new data sources for that may be germane to their work.

Participants will have the opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions. The workshop is free and open to the public. It will be recorded and the recording will be sent to all registrants.

This PEERS workshop is the 10th webinar in the 11-part PEERS Research Methods Series. Workshop recordings and related workshop materials are accessible on the PEERS website. The PEERS Data Hub is offering this series in collaboration with the Institutes in Research Methods (IRM), also funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through its Building Capacity in STEM Education Research (BCSER) program.

The PEERS Data Hub is a joint effort of AERA and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which is NSF funded (Awards ECR 1937612 [AERA] and ECR 1937509 [ICPSR]). It provides collaborative space for STEM education research communities to build and advance knowledge by sharing innovative ideas, methods, and tools. Further information about the PEERS Data Hub is available here.