Social Research Facilities Survey

Funders: ESRC Census Development Programme
Name: Jo Wathan, Christine Farmer
Dates: 2009

The Social Research Facilities Survey is a survey of social science academics working in universities across the UK. It will provide us with a clearer picture of how you work, which in turn will help us better meet your needs when planning service provision.

Project Files:

• Findings (12th January 2010)
• Questionnaire
• Letter sent to participants (August 2009)
• Original survey aims from grant proposal (Autumn 2007)
• Draft sample design document (July 2009)
• Time scale (August 2009)

Contact Us

Queries can be directed to facilities-survey@ccsr.ac.uk.
Chris Farmer can be contacted on: (0161) 275 4738.
Jo Wathan can be contacted on: (0161) 275 4262.

Results

Will be made available on this page as soon as they are available. We anticipate that initial results will be available in December.

Last updated 11 August 2009

Questions:

How have you selected me? We have selected 10 disciplines and drawn our sample from departments listed on the Intute web site.  In a small number of departments with heavy use of data we have selected the entire department.  Amongst all other departments we have selected 2 individuals drawn at random from every sixth department.  We recognise that in some cases this means you may be selected as you work with social scientists even though you may not consider yourself to be.  Every response is equally important to us.

I want to participate but have not been invited, can I take part? In order to maintain our random sample the survey is only available to individuals who have been contacted by the team. If you have not been selected for the survey but would like to share your experience of your working environment, research facilities or data access please contact us at facilities-survey@ccsr.ac.uk

Why do I have a keyword? To understand responses, we need to know who has responded. This will allow us to adjust figures to allow for the fact not everyone is willing to participate. Your keyword is unique to you. Finally, by giving a keyword we know that you have received our letter which contains information you should have before participating. It is therefore not possible to participate without a keyword.

I have lost my keyword and want to complete the form online – what do I do? Just let us know and we will provide you with this.

I have lost my return envelope - what do I do? You can either post the form to Christine Farmer, CCSR, Kantorovich Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL, or if you have your keyword why not complete the form online?

Can you identify my responses in your database? Your name, institution and department will never be stored with or linked to your survey responses. That is a promise to you, to our funders and to our ethics committee.

Are you trying to identify breaches in data licences or the law? No. We have worked hard to find a combination of questions which will not make this possible. We simply want to know how researchers work and with what facilities so that we can plan services that fit your needs.

I don’t do quantitative research, is this relevant to me? We would like to be able to assess working conditions across a range of mainly social science disciplines. This includes those who do and do not work with data. Your responses are useful to us and we’d like to hear from you.

What will happen with my data? It will be stored without identifying information (your name and institution). It will be analysed in order to produce research reports and presentations including providing information for data services to use during negotiations to obtain data. Once the analysis has been completed we will offer the dataset (again, without names and institutions) to the Economic and Social Data Service for possible re-use by researchers.