Our Data Services
Internet Data
One of the most important consequences of digitization is that it allows us to store and process enormous amounts of data. New methodological challenges arise and old ones are revisited, together creating new opportunities for research. Most of this type of new digital data, although publicly available, is stored in proprietary data silos not ready to use for empirical analyses by outsiders. The IDSC performs advocacy for the availability of such data to social science and develops tools and skills for data extraction in order to facilitate the use of this type of data for researchers.
Our own research activities prove the usefulness of internet data research. As an example, we offer the “Toll Index,” an experimental monthly indicator for the German business cycle. It measures the monthly transportation activity performed by heavy transport vehicles across the country and has highly desirable availability properties (insignificant revisions, short publication lags) as a result of the innovative data collection technology. The Toll Index data is available via the IDSC data repository system.
This new index is an excellent example of technological, innovation-driven economic telemetry, which can be exploited for economic forecasting.
For details on the underlying nowcasting method of the Toll Index see http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/for.1262/abstract
IDSC Dataverse
IZA and its Research Data Center provide the IDSC Dataverse, a dynamic data repository tailored to meet the needs of labor market research. It is a growing repository which encompasses a wide array of socio-economic studies, including behavioral experiments, labor market analyses, and examinations of the impacts of COVID-19 on various population groups. Each study employs diverse methods such as decision experiments, surveys, and interviews, focusing on topics like decision-making processes, employment, gender roles, and the experiences of migrants.
The IDSC Repository offers various access models to accommodate the varied needs of individuals or organizations associated with the IZA. This includes meeting publication and funding requirements, as well as standards set by journals, projects, or organizations.
In addition to datasets initiated by IZA itself, the Repository also hosts datasets uploaded independently by researchers and other organizations. The IDSC Dataverse supports this with online solutions for independent documentation, upload, and publication of research data and replication codes. Researchers are thus provided with DOIs issued by the IDSC, enabling the scientifically correct citation of their datasets and related publications.
All data collected are made available to the scientific community for scholarly analyses free of charge.
The IDSC Dataverse is available at https://dataverse.iza.org/
For further information please contact idsc@iza.org
Data Citation
The IZA Institute of Labor Economics recognizes the importance of proper citation of data as it
- acknowledges the author's sources
- makes identifying data easier
- promotes the reproduction of research results
- allows the impact of data to be tracked
- provides a structure which recognizes and can reward data creators
- increases impact and prestige of publications.
Based on this we worked out a data citation convention which takes into account prior work done by respectable institutions and should become a standard for dataset citation in scientific literature. IZA adopts the data citation conventions across all of its publications: IZA Discussion Paper Series, IZA Journals, IZA World of Labor, etc.
The Data Citation is available at https://www.iza.org/apps/citation/
For further details on our recommended citation standards please contact idsc@iza.org
Data Access via JoSuA
Remote access is an option when data are not directly available to researchers. The IDSC has developed JoSuA, an innovative job submission application, which can be implemented by data providers in order to offer secured remote access to their data.
Originally designed in order to grant international researchers access to German labor market data, JoSuA has matured into a flexible and scalable instrument of data analysis of configurable degree of automation designed to fit the data security provisions of each individual data provider.
JoSuA is not only used at IZA, but also at the Research Data Center of the German Federal Employment Agency (BA) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). Via JoSuA researchers have access to a broad variety of IAB data sets, e.g., the IAB Employment Panel.
JoSuA is available at https://josua.iza.org/
For questions concerning our dataset portfolio or acquiring JoSuA, please contact idsc@iza.org.
IZA Evaluation Dataset
The IZA Evaluation Dataset Survey (IZA ED Survey) is a novel panel survey which tracks the employment history, behavior and individual traits of a large, representative cohort of individuals. The IZA ED Survey covers a panel of 18,000 individuals who registered as unemployed at the Federal Employment Agency in Germany between June 2007 and May 2008. The individuals were interviewed up to four times over a time span of three years, starting at their entry into unemployment. This data allows the researchers to observe dynamics with respect to individual and labor market characteristics during the early stage of unemployment, as well as tracking long-run outcomes.
For more information see https://ed.iza.org or contact idsc@iza.org
Annual DDI User Conference (EDDI)
Initiated by the IDSC of IZA and the Leibnitz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS) the Annual European DDI User Conference (EDDI) provides a discussion forum for European Members of the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI), an actively developed standard specification able to address the documentation and management of data across its entire life cycle. The conference series is run jointly together with the DDI alliance.
Further information: http://www.eddi-conferences.eu/ocs/index.php/eddi/inde
IDSC Cloud Service
Supported by the IT group of IZA, the IDSC offers cloud services for the members of IZA in order to facilitate effective cooperation between the institutes, the IZA research network, and third-party collaborators. The services are available at:
Contact idsc@iza.org for more information.