ELECTRONIC DATA SERVICE GROUP
MINUTES OF THE MEETING FEBRUARY 14, 2001
Present: McTaggart, Judy (Recorder) Pinnell, Richard
Moskal, Susan (Chair) Rahman, Shabiran
Absent: Jack Cooper
1. Minutes of Previous Meeting, January 24, 2001
Accepted.
2. Business Arising:
Item 1, Web Board: Richard reported he has received a password and username from Doug Horne to access the web board.
Item 2, Statistics - CARL: Susan Routliffe will pursue this issue. It was suggested by Susan Moskal that faculty members on campus who might have expertise in this area could be consulted.
Susan noted she has sent an email asking to have the topic of "Reports and Statistics" added as an agenda item at the CAPDU session.
Item 3, Questionnaires: Susan returned the questionnaire for DLI; however, the SSHRC questionnaire has not yet been completed. She contacted Chuck Humphrey (National Data Archive Association) to enquire why we received both.
3. Data Sets on Tape (Shabiran)
Shabiran reported John Wilson has completed the conversion of all DRC data sets (including those available elsewhere). The data will be kept on his server.
It was suggested a link to the data be placed on the EDS web page. There was discussion about adding links to other sites having large datasets (eg.SSHRC data) Action: Richard will take this to OMG.
4. Access to TDR Data From Non-Member Institutions (Richard)
Richard reported he received a message from the map librarian at U. of T. expressing surprise at being able to access and download data from the TDR site.
Courtesy access has been extended to professional data librarians. The issue was discussed and the group felt access should be restricted to members of the TUG universities. Action: Richard will take this to the next TDR/OMG meeting
5. OMG Report (Richard)
No report - OMG did not meet. A call for agenda has been put out for the next meeting.
6. Data Links Update (Shabiran)
Shabiran hopes to have the next issue of Data Links ready by the beginning of March. It will be done only in html format.
7. Electronic Reference Shelf (Susan)
The group examined the links on the Electronic Reference Shelf under the facts and figures section. It was felt it would be more appropriate to have many of the links placed elsewhere (i.e. data pages, G.P. area, Economics page) This section should contain only items that are compendiums of facts (e.g. World Fact Book) and other similar titles. Action: Susan will send a memo to the Electronic Reference Shelf group expressing this concern.
8. Around The Table
Richard asked if the cataloguing of DLI records and codebooks and related issues should be discussed at a future meeting. It will be put as an agenda item for the March 14 meeting (following Susan's vacation) Action: Richard will print some TRELLIS records and distribute to the group prior to the meeting.
Problems with GSS data sets were discussed. Shabiran noted GSS13 is missing a variable. She will post on the DLI list if it is still missing after a week. Susan reported she had received a call from a professor unable to access GSS11 data. She discovered the data was being worked on and temporarily unavailable. There was no message to indicate this. Action: Richard will follow up.
Next Meeting: March 14, 2001; Porter 224A; 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.