Dear all
Here is this week’s round up.
This week the Church of England published a paper on same sex marriage. Read the paper to see what they really think.
http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1475149/s-s%20marriage.pdf
For further links see our blog. http://lselibraryresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/same-sex-marriage-what-does-church.html
Public Public satisfaction with the NHS and its services
Also this week the Kings Fund released data from the 2011 British Social Attitudes survey which records declining satisfaction with the NHS. See the data and discussion on its website and blog. http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/current_projects/bsa_survey_results_2011/index.html
Other sources for NHS satisfaction include:
NHS direct satisfaction levels. http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/members/membersmagazinearchive/togetherwinter0910/usersatisfactionsurvey
NHS staff satisfaction surveys- how happy are staff with their work and conditions?
http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/03/nhsstaffsurvey
GP patient surveys. http://www.gp-patient.co.uk/info/
NHS complaints statistics. http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/audits-and-performance/complaints
Social care surveys. http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/social-care/user-surveys
Social care online is also a good place for searching for free articles and reports covering all aspects of social welfare. This includes extensive coverage of NHS topics. Many items are full text online. http://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/
Citizen Relay
http://www.citizenrelay.net/
is a crowdsourcing project coordinated by the University of the West of Scotland which is tracking the the Olympic torch across Scotland. Citizen reporters and members of the public are being encouraged to record writings and images of local events. The website includes youtube video, tweets and flickr photographs. They are also collecting oral history accounts and aiming to develop educational resources.
Global Economic Prospects June 2012
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/EXTGBLPROSPECTSAPRIL/0,,menuPK:659178%7EpagePK:64218926%7EpiPK:64218953%7EtheSitePK:659149,00.html
Latest world bank report released. Track the latest economic trends. The website includes global forecasts and regional outlooks.
Get mappings of the data on the World Bank data site. http://data.worldbank.org/topic/economic-policy-and-external-debt
The European Central Bank has the latest Eurozone economic and financial data http://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/keyind/html/sdds.en.html
European Economic Sentiment Indicator http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/surveys/
The ESI is a monthly leading indicator compiled by ECFIN with data for the EU-27 and Eurozone-17. The Indicator is based on surveys of consumers and business managers.
For guidance on researching European economics the EUI university highlights key EU economic services (note some limited to subscribers only.)
http://www.eui.eu/Research/Library/ResearchGuides/Economics/EuropeanEUandEurozoneStatistics.aspx
USA voting patterns new visualization
http://smpbff1.dsd.census.gov/TheDataWeb_HotReport/servlet/HotReportEngineServlet?reportid=767b1387bea22b8d3e8486924a69adcd&emailname=essb@boc&filename=0328_nata.hrml
Taken from the Current Population Survey. A series of graphs. Users can look by district, ethnic group and age for elections covering 1996-2010.
For access to other tables relating to the US census see the Data ferret tool http://dataferrett.census.gov/
This also has details on the methodology used in the survey.
Miscarriages of Justice- USA
http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx
The University of Michigan Law School and the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law recently launched an online database containing an updated list of exonerations in the United States since 1989. The registry has case studies of wrongful convictions. Including details of the offence, court cases and appeals. There are also statistics relating to wrongful conviction and details of the law. In England the Criminal cases review commission website has a case library of reference from its establishment in 1995. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission covers Scotland.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/about/criminal-cases-review-commission
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/multimedia-2/
Launched by the LSE, a blog discussing India-related research, courses and events at the London School of Economics and Political Science. It includes coverage of a wide range of social science topics ranging from economics, development studies, media, gender and politics. It will include links to full text papers from the LSE's India observatory as well as multimedia of LSE sponsored events.
other useful India blogs include: Indian government press releases; http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=84868
India Real Time http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/ (This is from the Wall street Journal and contains the latest analysis, economics, business, finance and political news); Knowledge@wharton
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/%20(Produced at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, the newsletter includes articles covering business, economics, law and public policy)
DART Europe- now provides free access to over 30,000 online theses from 43 nations
http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-search.php
Search by keyword or browse by institution
Remember that a main portal for UK is Ethos but do check what institutions it covers. For subscribers Index to theses is still more comprehensive.
http://ethos.bl.uk/
the Networked library of digital theses http://www.ndltd.org/ is a good place for locating projects and portals of theses outside of Europe. It has a search facility. http://www.ndltd.org/find
See also our quick links via delicious to major national projects. http://delicious.com/lselibrary/theses
OPOSSEM: the Online Portal of Social Science Education in Methodology
http://opossem.org/
project to create , an online repository and community to enable sharing of resources for teaching social science research methods. Covers all levels from secondary to undergraduate to postgraduate. Emphasis upon teaching i.e. syllabi, lecture notes, slides. There are materials covering general literature searching. http://opossem.org/content/introducing-literature-grid-helping-students-and-researchers-consistently-produce-quality-li
Also strong coverage of statistical and data methods.
Consult the site for information on copyright
For uk try Jorum- a repository of free teaching and learning resources http://www.jorum.ac.uk/%20
Specifically for methodology
The social science methods textbook is well regarded from William M.K. Trochim this offers a basic knowledge base of methods suitable for undergraduate level. http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/
ESRC National centre For Research Methods provides support. http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/%20 See news, training events. See the online toolkit of useful training resources covering different research methods. These include qualitative and quantitative methods and mixed methods approaches. http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/TandE/online.php
Digital engagement cookbook
http://www.digitalengagement.org/
The site is sponsored by Consumer Focus – a statutory body championing the rights of consumers. It aims to show them how to use social media to become involved in local issues.,
It has a directory of methods that might be used. The links section showcases other sites which have case studies of successful e-participation projects http://www.digitalengagement.org/?page_id=18
Heather Dawson
LSE Library