UK DATA ARCHIVE: IMPORTANT STUDY INFORMATION 5633 - Participation of Volunteer Citizens in the Governance of Education, 2000-2003 --------------------- DATA PROCESSING NOTES --------------------- Data Archive Processing Standards --------------------------------- The data were processed to the UK Data Archive's 'A' standard. A rigorous and comprehensive series of checks was carried out to ensure the quality of the data and documentation. The most important procedures were as follows. Firstly, checks were made that the number of cases and variables matched the depositor's records. Secondly, checks were made that all variables had variable labels and all nominal (categorical) variables had value labels. Where possible, either with reference to the documentation and/or in communication with the depositor, absent labels were created. Thirdly, logical checks were performed to ensure that nominal (categorical) variables had values within the range defined (either by value labels or in the depositor's documentation). Lastly, any data or documentation that breached confidentiality rules were altered or suppressed to preserve anonymity. All notable and/or outstanding problems discovered are detailed under the 'Data and documentation problems' heading below. Data and Documentation Problems ------------------------------- None. Useful Notes ------------ Conversion of Documentation --------------------------- All electronic and paper documentation supplied with this study is normally incorporated into the UKDA User Guide (in PDF format). The conversion programmes used are the latest versions of Adobe PDF Writer for electronic documentation and Adobe Paper Capture (Acrobat 'plugin' version) for paper documentation. Occasionally, some or all of the electronic documentation cannot be usefully converted to PDF (e.g. MS Excel files with wide worksheets) and this is supplied in other formats. All User Guides are fully bookmarked. Conversion of Data ------------------ Ingest format(s) of the data = SPSS system (.sav) format (version 12) From January 2003 onwards, almost all data conversions have been performed using software developed by the UKDA. This enables standardisation of the conversion methods and ensures optimal data quality. In addition to its own data processing/conversion code, this software uses the SPSS and StatTransfer command processors to perform certain format translations. Although data conversion is automated using quality checked processes, all data files created are also subject to visual checking by a UKDA data processor. NOTE: With some format conversions data, and more especially internal metadata (i.e. variable labels, value labels, missing value definitions, data type information), will inevitably be lost or truncated. To see the internal metadata as it existed in the originating format, you will normally have been provided with a UKDA Data Dictionary file corresponding to each data file, these are called: _UKDA_Data_Dictionary.rtf Additional comment about each data format is given below, please read the wording corresponding to the data format you have been supplied with: STATA If STATA is not the ingest format, all STATA files will have been created from SPSS .sav format via the Stat/Transfer command processor. Importantly, Stat/Transfer's optimisation routine is run so that variables with SPSS write formats narrower than the data (e.g. numeric variables with 10 decimal places of data formatted to FX.2) are not rounded upon conversion to STATA because they are converted to "doubles" rather than floats. "User missing" values are copied across into STATA (as opposed to being collapsed into a single system missing code). Issues: There are a number of data handling mismatches between SPSS and STATA. Where any data or internal metadata has been lost or truncated, this will have been automatically logged in this file, with which you will have been supplied: _SPSS_to_STATA_conversion.rtf Note that the complete internal metadata has been supplied to you in the UKDA Data Dictionaries: _UKDA_Data_Dictionary.rtf