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- BLOG - Access to secure data during the Covid-19 pandemic - a model for the future?
- Covid-19 and Care Homes: Advances in Administrative Data Research during the pandemic
- DATA INSIGHTS -Deprivation and informal care at the end of life
- NEWS - Innovative new residential linkage tool launched
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.4
- DATA INSIGHTS - Youth Movements, Social Mobility and Health Inequalities
- NEWS - New report warns of deepening poverty crisis for Scottish families
- New report on Infants Born into Care in Scotland
- Spotlight on Dr Elizabeth Lemmon
- Spotlight on Jan Savinc
- BLOG - The value of social science and administrative data research in Scotland: how we are helping respond to COVID-19
- DATA INSIGHTS - Exploring illegal drug consignments in Scotland
- DATA INSIGHTS -Linking two administrative data sets about looked after children
- NEWS – ADR Scotland data ambassadors launched
- The importance of administrative data
- Virtual Conference - Data Linkage: Information to Impact
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No.7
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.3
- DATA INSIGHTS - Investigating the effects of class composition and class size on pupils’ attainment in Scottish primary schools
- NEWS - New opportunity to join ADR Scotland’s Public Panel
- BLOG - Exploring the potential of synthetic data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Automatic Coding of Occupations: Methods to create the Scottish Historic Population Database (SHPD)
- DATA INSIGHTS - Selective schools: do they improve health?
- EVENT - Active Travel: New Data, New Insights
- EVENT - Holyrood Evidence Week: Doing Data Better for Policy and Public Good
- BLOG - Geospatial Ambitions
- BLOG - Taking historical death records and developing a database for future analysis
- DATA INSIGHTS - Community mortality due to Covid-19
- Future-proofing investment into administrative data research announced in Scotland
- NEWS - Understanding the dynamics of the nursing workforce: the potential of routinely collected data
- Spotlight on Katherine Falconer
- ADR Scotland publishes its strategy for 2022-2026
- BLOG: Developing a cross-national research agenda on crime and convictions
- BLOG: Working together to make a difference with data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Homelessness duration in Scotland: how long does rehousing take?
- DATA INSIGHTS - Occupation and COVID-19 deaths: Scotland in a comparative perspective
- DATA INSIGHTS -The health and economic benefits of active commuting in Scotland
- IPDLN Conference - Data linkage research: informing policy and practice
- Spotlight on Dr Evan Williams
- Spotlight on Fernando Pantoja
- Spotlight on Laurie Berrie
- ADR Scotland Winter Partnership Session - **internal event**
- BLOG - AGEING AND HOMELESSNESS IN SCOTLAND
- BLOG - Can we use linked administrative data to identify social disadvantage?
- BLOG - Commuting and its impact on health
- BLOG - The Dynamics of the Nursing Workforce in the UK: Using data to support our nurses
- BLOG: Growing up in kinship care
- DATA INSIGHTS - Analysing a season of death and excess mortality in Scotland’s past
- EVENT - ADR UK Virtual Half Day event
- Event - Public data for public good: towards better understanding children's lives
- NEWS - Data research initiative secures £90 m funding extension
- NEWS: Our role supporting the new Covid-19 research data service in Scotland
- Spotlight on Michelle K Jamieson
- Webinar - An Introduction to Looked-After Children Dataset
- BLOG - An Inside Job: Using Criminology, Police Data and a Lot of Nouse
- BLOG - Improving justice data to promote data justice in Scotland
- BLOG - Location of death in 2020: a changing trend from hospitals to homes
- BLOG - Seeking feedback on Research Data Scotland’s core principles via our public panel
- BLOG - What skills, training and support are required by those wishing a career as an administrative data researcher?
- BLOG No. 9 - Final blog in this 'deaths at home' series
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No. 6
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No.8
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.5
- BLOG: 5 things I've learnt about working with policymakers...
- BLOG: Automating Coding for Large Historical Datasets
- BLOG: COVID-19- How increased deaths at home impact the carer community
- DATA INSIGHTS -Postal deliveries of drugs in Scotland
- EVENT - 'Getting things done with data in government'
- EVENT - Linking public sector data for research: an ADR UK showcase event
- EVENT Seminar - Administrative data for social policy research: potential and pitfalls
- NEWS - Additional funding for Understanding Children’s Lives and Outcomes
- NEWS - Engaging children and young people
- NEWS: Police use of Fixed Penalty Notices under the Covid-19 regulations in Scotland: A new data report highlights links with deprivation and inequality
- NEWS: Police use of the new Covid-19 powers: Using administrative data to analyse and evaluate practice
- Research Data Scotland - New user forum
- Spotlight on Dr Patricio Troncoso
- Summary of ADR Scotland Winter Partnership session
- Directorship of the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) for 2021-22.
- BLOG: In the light of experience: InterRAI and the final thousand days of life
- Multiple health conditions and social care
- NEWS - Susan McVie elected as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
- SCADR relocates to the Bayes Centre
- EVENT: Four day introduction to using administrative data for social and health research
- BLOG: The value of administrative data: DALYs and the Scottish Burden of Disease study
- BLOG: Where to start with parliamentary and policy engagement
- EVENT - International Conference on Administrative Data Research, Cardiff
- EVENT - Using data to realise the potential of the 'Last 1000 days'
- EVENT: TalkingData: ADR Scotland mini-summit
- EVENT: “Let’s use data to save time, money and lives”: ADR Scotland partners gather for mini-summit
- EVENTS: ADR Scotland researchers present at international conference in Cardiff
- SafePod Network
Training
There are various training courses available to support administrative data research, some of which are essential in order to access data and others which build relevant skills.
Working with Administrative Data Training
If you are a first time researcher, we recommend a free online modular course offered by Centric as a first step. This course provides a good overview of best research practice in the use of administrative data.
For those researchers looking for more additional training, we would encourage them to enquire about the four courses listed below, that are comprehensive introductions/overviews of working with administrative data. Each course varies in length, cost and depth, so please enquire directly to each training provider for full details.
1. An Introduction to Data Science for Administrative Data Research (IDS-ADR) course:
This course gives a full introduction to administrative data, describing what it is, some particular problems that may arise in working with this type of data and how to deal with them.
Theoretical sessions and hands-on practical sessions using R syntax and synthetic data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), explain to users how to:
- tidy, clean and recode data
- link datasets
- manipulate data
- conduct data visualisation
- identify data quality issues
- and fit regression models
Data showcases and researcher experience sessions describe how to access data and avoid common pitfalls.
Read the feedback from a past attendee of the IDS-ADR training course - find out why they gave it a 5 star rating.
We hope to run this course in Autumn 2022. When the date is confirmed, we will open a specific IDS-ADR webpage giving further details. For enquires regarding when the next training course will run, please email scadr@ed.ac.uk.
2. Administrative Data Training - Centric:
Centric’s online self-guided course is for researchers interested in or currently working with UK administrative data and was co-produced by researchers and stakeholders using administrative data.
The online training via Moodle contains interactive slides and learning materials covering the following topics:
- Intro to admin data
- Admin data in the study lifecycle
- Safeguarding Public Data - models of data access and identifiability
- Key Regulatory Considerations
- The Application and Approvals (from key UK providers)
- Working with the Public
Supporting these modules is an extensive resources section for further reading and to advance understanding. Please visit the Centre for Trials Research at Cardiff University or Centric's webpage for further details on training courses available.
3. Data Awareness Training – The Health Foundation & Cancer Research UK:
This course starts with the basics of different types of data, why some is more sensitive and legally protected, and how different access processes are required for different types of data.
Further information is given on data access processes and creating safe outputs (Statistical Disclosure Control) from The Health Foundation’s secure data environment.
Please visit the Working Group for Safe Data Access Professionals webpage for further details, where the Slides from this course are available.
4. Analysis of Linked Health Data (introductory and advanced) – Swansea University / University of Sydney:
These in depth courses are ideal for health and social care researchers, social scientists, clinical practitioners and health care managers and introduce the topic of linked health data analysis at an introductory to intermediate level.
Practical exercises using deidentified data use programs such as SPSS, SAS, STATA or R to investigate methods of basic statistical analysis. Topics include:
- Introduction to data linkage and its history
- How record linkage works & quality
- Ethics, data security, application processes
- Types of population health databases
- Constructing study populations
- Arrays, merging datasets, tagging records, creating sequence variables
- Measures of health care utilisation; health care episodes
- Preparing data for analysis & accuracy and reliability of data sources
- Introduction to survival analysis and Cox regression
Please visit the Data Science webpage at Swansea University for further information on either the Analysis of Linked Health Data (PMIM302) or the Advanced Analysis of Linked Health Data (PMIM602) course, or visit the University of Sydney Short Courses webpage.
Skills Training
Researchers
Researchers using administrative data need a variety of skills. Training required depends on their experience, the data accessed and the analysis required.
Before researchers can access any data in the National Safe Haven, they must have successfully completed appropriate training, such as the ONS Safe Researcher Training course (ONS-SRT). Specific data controllers have specific training course requirements, so please do check with your Data Controller or Research Coordinator, that they are satisifed the ONS-SRT course is right for your needs.
Research Methods
- The National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) has a comprehensive course database of methodological courses covering a wide variety of relevant skills.
- The UK Data Service runs multiple training courses and resources including courses specifically on the data within the holding and how to use it, as well as wider skills training in a range of data.
- The Scottish Longitudinal Study Development and Support Unit (SLS-DSU) run courses on specific methods within administrative data research such as survival analysis, and an introduction to the Scottish Longitudinal Study resource.
For those new to quantitative research, most universities run in-depth introductions for staff and students to statistical packages like R, Stata and SPSS.
Output checking/Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC)
The UK Data Service Handbook on Statistical Disclosure Control for Outputs is available on their website.
The ONS SRT course delivered by SCADR has an extensive section on SDC and how to create safe outputs, please visit our website for more information.
The Safe Data Access Professionals group have produced a Guide on Statistical Disclosure Control (SDC) to ensure that your research outputs do not disclose any information about the individuals or organisations in your data set.
The Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care (HSC-PBPP) is an annual course explaining HSC-PBPP and and how to write a good application. Click here for details. Please read the HSC-PBPP course round-up blog on the eCRUSADers website for a full review.
Feedback welcome
We welcome feedback. Have you found any useful courses that we should promote? Are there skills where you need training but have not found suitable provision? Please contact us by emailing scadr@ed.ac.uk with your thoughts.