1. Small Area Data and Geography For the 2017 DLI Training Workshop

2. Small Geographies
Retrieving Data
Time Travel

3. Retrieving Data

4. Finding Data

5. Finding Data for Small Geographies
See pages 3 and 4 of the handout. When answering a question, you could go directly to the appropriate source, or you might end up searching all of these sources.
Look for an announcement about the Small Area Data Guide: How to find national statistics at sub-provincial levels by Ray D. Bollman at the Rural Ontario Institute.

6. From the Small Area Data Guide: How to find national statistics at sub-provincial levels by Ray D. Bollman at the Rural Ontario Institute.

7. Beyond 20/20 WDS
Beyond 20/20 WDS is available only at DLI institutions and contains many tables, including tables created for the DLI community.
Learn more by viewing the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server (WDS) presentation by Jen Scharf from Statistics Canada. CD
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8. CANSIM Tables Interactive tables available to the public
Click on Add/Remove data to reveal additional fields.
Click on Download to retrieve ALL the data.
Save the table number – the hyperlink breaks down when using table interactivity. CD
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9. CANSIM
When choosing to download the entire dataset, you can do wonderful things with Beyond 20/20 (windows only).
Try a CANSIM Table Exercise.
See these slides about Beyond 20/20.
View a demonstration of Beyond 20/20 – released with a Creative Commons license, so feel free to download and remix! CD
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10. PUMFs in the DLI Collection
Public Use Microdata Files which are immediately accessible in the DLI collection. Contains microdata from Stats Can surveys. Typically contains detailed data at not so specific levels of geography.
Search in Odesi or Nesstar.
Retrieve in Odesi, or Nesstar, or SDA, or EFT, or other products.
Look for the geography variables.
To learn more:
View the Continuum of Access presentation.
Try this Odesi Exercice.
View this Nesstar presentation from the DLI and try the exercise.
View this Restructuring the DLI EFT DLI presentation and the Navigating Your Way Through the EFT (..) DLI presentation.
If your institution has SDA, try viewing this SDA video on downloading data or this SDA video on creating online tables. And try an SDA exercise. CD
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11. Open Data Repositories
Check open data repositories at the national, provincial, and even city level to see if you can find any datasets for your desired level of geography. Typically contains less detailed data but sometimes at very precise levels of geography.
To learn more:
Explore a list of Canadian Open Data repositories in Open Government Canada.
Try looking at Canadian Research Repositories (see this presentation by Peter Webster and exercise).
Learn about advanced data extraction from open repositories by trying this Peter Webster Nova Scotia Open Data exercise. CD
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12. Google
A good Google search can sometimes reveal other datasets with small geographies.
Practice advanced Google Search techniques such as filters, the site operator, and the filetype operator by trying this exercise. CD
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13. Google You can add standard Stats Can geography to your search terms.
For example, did you know that the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada has Insolvency numbers by FSA! CD
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14. Census
Census data can be found in the Census Profiles, the Canadian Census Analyzer, the EFT, in microdata format in Nesstar, in Basic Summary Tables (BSTs), in print publications, in the internet archive's collection, in Beyond 20/20 WDS…
Start by looking at the census profiles (until all the 2016 products are released, look at the 2011 census profiles and NHS profiles.
Try this outdated NHS exercise. CD
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15. Census
See the products identified with a star in page 3 of the handout.
For 2016, see the list generated by GeoSearch.
See this Census Analyser Office Mix and using Excel on the Census Analyser data Office Mix (both with Creative Commons licenses).
See Historical Census Statistics by Mowers and Guindon for good overview.
See other presentations in the DLI training repository. CD
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16. Common Small Data Problems

17. Random rounding (census): end in '0' or '5‘, may not add up to total

18. It doesn't exist! No one has ever collected this data, or no one has ever created a dataset containing the exact needed variables.

19. It's unavailable! The dataset exists, but no one will allow you to access it for confidentiality purposes.

20. It's suppressed! The numbers exist, and you can access them, but some numbers have been removed (for methodological reasons, for confidentiality reasons, etc.)