Gwennaëlle Brilhault and Amandine Morisset
Head of INED’s Surveys Department and person in charge of listing INED surveys and making them available to users answer our questions on consulting surveys and data
(Interview conducted in March 2017)
Where are INED surveys listed?
The INED Survey Catalogue, also called Catalogue Nesstar, provides on-line access to documentation on all the surveys the Institute has conducted since its founding in 1945—over 200 references on such varied topics as fertility, contraception, sexuality, migration, discrimination, gender, generations, housing, employment, and others. When, how and by whom was a given study conducted? What were its objectives? What survey and collection methods were used? INED’s Survey Department ensures that all this information is available in the catalogue, a meticulous documentation process in compliance with the DDI international standard, and one that extends in part to the databases. For example, users can consult frequency distributions for each variable, response categories, and the text of the questions that produced the data. For further information, French or foreign social science researchers and students may file an order with the Réseau Quetelet (Quetelet Network), which, after validating the request, transmits the database in question (SAS, SPSS or CSV format).
What is the Réseau Quetelet?
INED is a founding partner of this network (now part of the PROGEDO data infrastructure), which coordinates documentation, archiving and diffusion to the scientific community of most quantitative human and social science surveys. The other founding partners of the Réseau Quetelet are the Centre de Données Socio-Politiques of Sciences Po (CDSP) and the CMH-ADISP (Centre Maurice Halbwachs-Archives de Données Issues de la Statistique Publique), in charge of making public statistics surveys and data available. Users file their database requests with the Réseau Quetelet. Now that the portal has been remodeled (2014), they can order data from different producers in a single visit, though each partner research institution is in charge of validating requests for its data. At INED, the Surveys and Polls Department handles requests. Data used for research purposes are transmitted free of charge; all commercial use of them is prohibited.
Why is it important to make INED survey data available?
All INED surveys are destined for diffusion to the scientific community (on condition that respondent anonymity is guaranteed). Data sharing is essential as it justifies the high cost of conducting the surveys: data gets reused, and the Institute’s work receives publicity and recognition. The process enables researchers to learn about and assess existing data and studies, to use them in secondary analyses, to set about collecting data on a different aspect of the given topic or to update the existing data if need be. Initial analysis of the data and findings is of course the prerogative of the survey designers; only later does the Réseau Quetelet make the material available to the scientific community at large.