Today marks the launch of the seventh and final chapter in the CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide (DMEG). DMEG is an online resource developed by European experts, and it is intended to be a complete guide to support you throughout the research process. You have previously been able to read the chapters Plan, Organise & Document, Process, Store, Protect, and Archive & Publish, and this final addition is Discovery.
Finding your way in the jungle of international data can be a real challenge. That is why CESSDA’s team of experts have created Discovery. This new chapter is a collection of useful resources to help researchers find and reuse data that are available via data archives and repositories all over the world. The reader receives useful hints on how to discover data as well as support in evaluating data quality. The guide also presents practical tips and stories from researchers who take you through their paths of using secondary data, from an original idea to actually working with the discovered data.
Discovery can be a one stop shop for someone looking for social science data, but the resources and tips can generally be used by researchers in most fields. There are well structured lists of reliable data sources, European and non-European, and the chapter also includes a curated catalogue of international surveys, which may serve as a useful starting point for comparative analyses.