1. General Social Survey Enquête sociale générale
Hands-on workshop in five parts

2. Learning Outcomes Further develop familiarity with
The GSS (General Social Survey) survey series
Sources of information about the survey
Access channels to the data From presentation ready statistics to creating statistics
Why use the access channels (don’t forget StatCan’s publications)
Data interchanges between the formats
What’s different about citing GSS surveys

3. Agenda Overview of the GSS series
Organization of the hands-on session Levels of access ⇢ data
Where to access and download formats…
Hands-on, through the levels of access
Analytical papers, publications, and quick synopses on the Daily
Summary tables, note overlap with above and published tables on the Statistics Canada website
Advanced statistical tables, e.g., CANSIM
Create custom tables via Odesi and note metadata at the core of Odesi
What can you download? Summary tables and microdata
RTRA
Format interchanges and How to Cite

4. What is the GSS (General Social Survey)?
Annual. Established in 1985, telephone surveys from representative samples from the 10 provinces. Not all early publications are electronic. Data collected over a 12 month period – population, 15 and older, living in private households, in the 10 provinces. 25,000 sample size since ____.
Occasionally, because of chosen subtopics, surveys may sample special populations, e.g., middle age and seniors

5. General Social Survey
Unique series design: repeated cycles on key social issues every 5 years
family victimization time-use social networks and identity, giving, volunteering, participating life course: work or education or retirement
… and related special topics ...
Note also, and e.g., the U.S. GSS via ICSPR

6. GSS covers behavior, intentions, fears, personal history, demographics, health, religion ...
GSS covers many social subjects in-depth
Like what demographic characteristics are most associated with the opinion that the police treat people fairly? Or this one from an interested grad student who moved from Montreal to Ottawa:
Are adults from Ottawa more likely to want to get married that women than women from Montreal? What if they have lived common law first, were they just as likely to want to get married?

7. The GSS covers these social issues
Survey years on the same topic are comparable.
Note that the first GSS “cycle” stated in 1985 on the topic health.

8. General Social Survey Added bonus New Content with each cycle ...
Check it out! Appendix B [LINK]

9. Sources of Information about the GSS
Essential:
An Overview of the General Social Survey: [Link] and appendices A & B High level
Online catalogue: [Link]
Survey definitions, data sources and methods [Link]
Odesi metadata and data exploration functions

10. What is Beyond 20/20? The little multitalented data viewer!
Delivers large statistical tables with multiple series (re: variables, geography, time) and metadata;
Download to Excel for further calculations and file conversions! Hint: keep totals;
Great customizations (see next slide) for data presentations and visualisations

11. Beyond 20/20 Customization
Labels : (1) Loaded with label descriptors and settings as well as in context metadata. (2) Hierarchical labels for geography and concepts! Search/manipulate. (2) Allows you to retain meaningful labels for visualisation, output tables, and GIS in your downloaded table. B2020 is a good options because straight to Excel (usually no) or .csv (no) doesn’t cut it.
Multiple variables / “dimensions” : Don’t need age breakdowns, occupational groups? Just take what you need.
Values : All values, then drop or keep what you want – Don’t need , cities other than Ottawa, raw numbers? Skip it!
Sorting by value (geocodes are great) PLUS...
Input desired geographies: Helps with the above
Some calculations, graphing, and sometimes maps.

12. What is Odesi? Hands-on exercise.
Use <odesi> alone with a known survey, the GSS Victimization, to answer what demographic characteristics are most associated with the opinion that the police treat people fairly?

13. And search to narrow down keywords within a survey and more

14. Comparison of Beyond 20/20, Excel, and Odesi as data platforms
Ease, speed and functionality of the applications
Managing your data for multiple applications
Strong data viewer
Visualization potential, e.g., mapping and many more
Retain full wording of variables
Organize your data for great tables and charts! Includes labels!
Intended for about numbers or less (and with short labels)
Beyond 20/20
Low
High
Excel
Low to medium
Odesi
Medium
High (through export)
Very customizable

17. Interoperability?

18. Where to start with Data? Inverse of Data Lifecycle