News

The best way to keep informed on FSD's activities is to follow our news updates on this page. Information on new datasets in English, projects and publications are gathered here. FSD Bulletin, our electronic newsletter, is published 2-3 times a year. More comprehensive information is available in Finnish: for example we have an information mailing lists for archive news and Research Methods Web Resource... Visit us on Facebook too!

RSS-feed on new datasets

2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |

2013

  • Online services unavailable

    FSD's online services will be unavailable between 7:30 - 12:00 local time on Monday 27 May due to electrical installation work at the archive.
    (17 May 2013)

  • New Bulletin published

    FSD Bulletin 37 (1/2013) is now published.
    (26 April 2013)

  • New Online Service for Data Access

    The new dissemination service Aila will replace the previous access control system based on paper forms. Aila will allow users to search and browse data and metadata online, and download data for research and educational purposes.
    See a separate information bulletin for more information on Aila.
    (25 April 2013)

  • New Bulletin published

    FSD Bulletin 36 (3/2012) is now published. The main theme of the issue is health data.
    (5 February 2013)

  • VERIC project

    Following a Research Infrastructures call (FIRI 2012), the Academy of Finland has granted FSD 360,000 Euros to build up tools and services needed for the full membership in the forthcoming CESSDA ERIC. The main aim of the VERIC project is to build a new database and tools for metadata capture, storage and repurposing. Another aim is to cooperate with Statistics Finland to enhance metadata interoperability.
    (22 January, 2013)

  • FSD statistics for the year 2012

    The year 2012 proved to be a busy one for FSD. Altogether, 688 datasets were disseminated to users, which signifies an increase of 30 per cent when compared with last year. The somewhat unexpected outcome of the Finnish parliamentary elections in 2011 had an impact on research as well: Finnish National Election Study 2011 headed the list of most requested datasets, both among users in Finland and abroad. Other elections studies were also much in demand. Of qualitative data, Parenthood after Divorce 2011-2012 was the most popular one.

    The number of data acquisitions was 109, and FSD collections now comprise over 1,300 datasets. As for the website, page requests continued to increase from the year 2011, when they rose to over a million for the first time.
    (21 January, 2013)

2012

  • Longitudinal Data on Corporal Punishment of Children

    FSD has published a series of datasets charting the attitudes of Finns towards the corporal punishment of children. The series, titled Attitudes towards Corporal Punishment of Children in Finland, includes data collected in the years 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012. Questions cover, among others, the use and intentions of using corporal punishment, views on the acceptability of corporal punishment against children, things that constitute a threat to the good life for children and the legal status of corporal punishment.
    The data are available for research and study purposes and the archive translates the data into English on request at no cost.
    » Archived data in the series
    (19 October, 2012)

  • New Bulletin published

    FSD Bulletin 35 (2/2012) is now published.
    (21 August, 2012)

  • CESSDA Expert Seminar in Tampere

    The CESSDA Expert Seminar (CES) 2012 will be hosted by the Finnish Social Science Data Archive in Tampere, Finland, from Thursday to Friday 4–5 October, 2012. The pre-seminar get-together will take place on Wednesday evening.

    The topic of the 2012 seminar is "Data Acquisition and License Agreements". We are inviting presentations and talks on all aspects of the acquisition process. The idea is to share and learn from difficult as well as successful experiences that we all have in data acquisition, and to discuss how to make the acquisition process smooth and satisfactory to all parties.

    Further information: (28 June, 2012)

  • New Bulletin published

    FSD Bulletin 34 (1/2012) is now published.
    (21 June, 2012)

  • Finnish National Election Study 2011 available

    FSD has now published the Finnish National Election Study 2011 (FSD2653). Questions cover political participation, political attitudes, party support, candidate and party choice and voting behaviour. The Finnish parliamentary elections, held in April 2011, had a suprising outcome with a landslide victory for the eurosceptic and anti-immigration True Finns party.
    The data have been translated into English and are available for research and study purposes.
    » Study description
    (30 March, 2012)

  • New website for FSD launched

    FSD launched its redesigned website today. The site now reflects the visual identity used in our printed material since last August.

    During the transition period short interruptions in our web services are possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We are working to get potential glitches sorted out as soon as possible.

    The old web design dated back to 2004. It had served us well but we believe it was time to change. With this new design we hope to make our online services more easily available. Some of the current content has been regrouped and all pages now have a secondary side navigation panel. As a result, some old links are now broken. Most notably, the URLs of the main site and the FSD Bulletin now have two-letter language identifiers (fi/ sv/ or en/). In most cases, we will redirect users to new locations but a number of pages have been permanently removed or integrated with other resources. The number of broken links may initially be higher right after the launch but we are working on to correct them.

    Our new logo and visual identity were designed by Redflow Inc. while the inhouse web team is responsible for all the changes in the structure and content.

    Further information: Please contact Tuomas J. Alaterä
    (20 March, 2012)

  • New website forthcoming

    FSD will launch its redesigned website in March (week 12). With this new design we hope to make data and services more easily available and make archive's webpages easy to read and navigate. Due to configuration changes some downtime and short interruptions in services are to be expected. Many of the URLs will change too. For example the data catalogue will move to a new URL. We are doing our best to make the transition as smooth as possible.
    (6 March, 2012)

  • FSD statistics

    For the first time ever, FSD web pages received over a million page requests in a year. 110 datasets were deposited at the archive. FSD collections now comprise about 1,200 datasets, of which more than 150 are qualitative data. The number of archived datasets disseminated to users was 527. The most frequently requested data was Eva Survey on Finnish Values and Attitudes 2010. As for qualitative data, the most popular one was Women and War 1987 - 1988, a study on Finnish women's experiences and memories of the WWII.
    (21 February, 2012)

  • Longitudinal data on working conditions in Finland

    FSD collections now include Finnish Working Life Barometers which provide an excellent opportunity for for studying changes in working life over time. Data have been collected annually since 1992. The surveys study employee opinions on the quality of Finnish working life, with most questions repeated each year. Some of the surveys are already available in English and and more are translated on request.
    (20 February, 2012)

  • New Bulletin published

    FSD Bulletin 33 (2/2011) is now published.
    (17 February, 2012)

2011

  • FSD has replaced its previous search engine by the Google customized search engine. We are hoping that the new search will be more user-friendly and produce more accurate hits. It is still possible to target your search to all FSD pages or only the data pages, or restrict your search to particular a file format. You can also choose different tabs to view the search results for a particular category of pages. Should you wish to do a more detailed search of data, for example, narrow down your search to titles, variables or question texts, you can do so with the Nesstar search interface.
    More information on search and search instructions.
    (25 January 2011)

2010

  • Following a Research Infrastructures call (FIRI 2010), the Academy of Finland has awarded funding for FSD to upgrade its national services and to meet the requirements of an international RI (CESSDA-ERIC). CESSDA-ERIC is planned to start operating in late 2011. In order to meet the criteria of full membership, FSD needs to extend and strenghten many of its services.
    After the upgrade, the scientific community will have much easier access to FSD data holdings with online registration and data download, better documented data from a wider range of research fields, and benefits from a better management of complex data. Other goals include research on costs, preservation and sharing of digital research data, and the provision of training material and courses on data management to the Finnish research community. The five-year project was awarded over a million euros.
    More information: Project description.
    (15 December 2010)
  • The Data Archive's information service is open the whole summer. However, due to staff holidays delays in deliveries are possible in July.
    The Centre for Gender Equality Information Minna is closed from 28 June to 30 July.
    For more information, please contact our information service at fsd@uta.fi or by calling +358 40 190 1432.
    (30 June 2010)
  • FSD has published new guidelines on how to cite data files, questionnaires and codebooks.
    (31 March 2010)

2009

  • The telephone numbers of the Finnish Social Science Data Archive have changed, because the Archive switched from landline to mobile phones in June. New numbers are updated on the web site. Fax number of the Archive did not change.
    (22 June 2009)
  • The Data Archive will move in July: Our website will be down and customer services closed from July 6 to 10, 2009

    The Finnish Social Science Data Archive will move on Tuesday July 7, 2009 to Åkerlundinkatu 5. Our new building is located right behind the University Library Linna. All our services will be closed from July 6-10, 2009. Our website and other online services are expected to be down too from July 6-8.

    The telephone numbers of the Data Archive will change too. New numbers will be announced later (see contact information). Old numbers should work for the time being. The Data Archive's postal address and staff's email addresses do not change. Email will be functioning normally during the move, but there will delays in responses.

    For more information:
    - email: fsd [at] uta.fi
    - tel: +358 40 190 1432
    - FSD staff contact information

    (10 June 2009)
  • The FSD has published guidelines for and concrete examples of data management planning, both for quantitative and qualitative data. Nowadays, several funders require researchers to append a data management plan to their research plan. A data management plan describes how research data will be collected, how the data will be used and stored during the research project, and how its reuse will be enabled and long-term preservation ensured after the original research is completed.
    (date missing)
  • Online Registration to the IASSIST/IFDO 2009 conference has now been opened. The conference will be held at Tampere, Finland, 26-29 May, and is hosted by the Finnish Social Science Data Archive and the University of Tampere. The theme of the conference is Mobile Data and the Life Cycle. To secure accommodation of your choice, we recommend registering as early as possible. Early Bird rate is valid until March 24.
    More information on the conference website.
    (12 February 2009)
  • The FSD has published guidelines for anonymisation of data, both for quantitative and qualitative data. Though compliant with the Finnish legislation, the guidelines contain general tips and instructions, and may thus be useful to researchers and data depositors from other countries.
    (date missing)

2008

  • The data archive's servers will be renewed between 7th and 11th January 2009. The transition to the new system may cause short breaks in our services. Our website may be down occasionally and data delivery might be delayed. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
    (17 December 2008)
  • Our information service is open the whole summer. However, due to staff holidays delays in deliveries are possible in late June, July and August. For more information, please contact our information service at fsd@uta.fi.
    (19 May 2008)
  • The FSD has now published the combined data files of the popular Finnish Voter Barometer series. FSD2276 contains the surveys from the years 1973 - 1990, and FSD2274 contains the years 1992 - 2005. More surveys will be added to the latter file as time goes on. The data have been translated into English, they are available at no cost for research purposes, and the codebooks can be read online.
    (18 February 2008)
  • The Council of European Social Science Data Archives Research Infrastructure (CESSDA RI) was identified in 2006 by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap exercise as an existing pan-European RI recommended for a major upgrade. The preparatory phase project for a major upgrade of the CESSDA RI has now been granted funding by the EC from its Seventh Framework Programme. The two-year project, the acronym of which is CESSDA PPP, was launched in January. 17 European data archives, including the FSD, participate in the project.
    » More information
    (18 February 2008)

2007

  • The IASSIST 2009 Conference will be held in Tampere, Finland. It will be the 35th annual conference held by the IASSIST (International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology). Over 200 experts on data archiving, documentation and dissemination are expected to come to Tampere in May 2009. This will be the first time the conference is held in Finland.
    (date missing)

2006

  • The FSD is offering new ways for you to find relevant data sets: our data catalogue can now be browsed by number, title, topic, keyword, or series. Another change is that the data catalogue has been divided into two main parts. The first part contains information on data that are archived at the FSD, and distributed by the archive. The second contains documentation on data that are held elsewhere, with information on access place and distributor.
    Data catalogue
    (date missing)
  • Our information service is open the whole summer. However, due to staff holidays delays in deliveries are possible in July. For more information, please contact our information service at fsd@uta.fi.
    (14 June 2006)

2005

  • The telephone numbers of the Finnish Social Science Data Archive changed 30 May 2005, because the number of University telephone exchange was changed. The previous (03) 215 prefix was replaced by (03) 3551. For example, the FSD's service numbers have changed as follows:

    Old: tel. +358 3 215 8519, fax +358 3 215 8520
    New: tel. +358 3 3551 8519, fax +358 3 3551 8520.

    When calling to the old number, the call will be directed automatically to the new number for the time being.
    (6 June 2005)
  • Redesigned access and agreement forms are available in various formats. The new forms are shorter and clearer than the previous versions and should thus facilitate the archiving process.
    (5 January 2005)

2004

  • FSD will launch its redesigned website on April 16th, 2004. With this new design the FSD hopes to make data more easily available and make archive's webpages easy to read and navigate.
    (23 March 2004)
  • FSDneWWs 13 (1/2004) now available in English.
    (3 March 2004)
updated 2013-05-17