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• Last Updated: 04/21/2011

Data Services

BA 4990H: Honors Thesis Seminar I and II

I guess it's been a while since I last looked at Census Bureau redistricting data because I was briefly surprised to find that the data are only available state by state. If you wish to view the data for the nation as a whole you'll need to download the table you're viewing and do the addition yourself. This is true for the redistricting data in Censuses 2000 and 2010, each of which is available from American Factfinder.

The Census Bureau does not publish data by Zip Code. Zip Codes are mail delivery codes created at and for the convenience of the U.S. Postal Service. Zip Codes are not consistent geographic units and the Census Bureau has to have consistency in a geographic unit in order to create meaningful statistics.

However, the Census Bureau did create "Zip Code Tabulation Areas" for Census 2000 which approximate real Zip Codes. Data from Census 2010 will eventually be available at the ZCTA level too, but the American Community Survey will not. As the American Community Survey is now the only source of nationwide socio-economic statistics for small geographic areas, this means users who need data organized by Zip Code will need to look elsewhere.

With the development of the American Community Survey over the last decade, the 2010 Census was much, much shorter than in 2000 or indeed any previous Census except for 1790.

In 2010, there were only 10 questions covering:

• how many people live here
• how old they are
• what sex they are
• how they are related
• how they define their race
• how they define their ethnicity
• whether their home is owned, rented, or no payment required
• whether the people in this house sometimes live elsewhere (college, nursing homes, prison, military, etc)

For recent data on any other socio-economic topics, users must now use the American Community Survey.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) runs many real-time data streams including water stage data. While the USGS clearly thinks this is worth doing, they provide a succinct reminder to users that, like everything in life, real-time data are not perfect. More importantly, they don't consider this a cause for panic - a cause for later analysis and data revision, certainly - but not panic when initial and public data may be inaccurate. After all, they're measuring events in the real world and not a controlled laboratory setting.

See the FAQ entry for "I frequently kayak the Potomac River and the real-time stage data reported by USGS seem to be too high (or too low). Are the USGS data inaccurate?" their answer.

"During the May 5th meeting of the National Science Board, National Science Foundation (NSF) officials announced a change in the implementation of the existing policy on sharing research data. In particular, on or around October, 2010, NSF is planning to require that all proposals include a data management plan in the form of a two-page supplementary document. The research community will be informed of the specifics of the anticipated changes and the agency's expectations for the data management plans."

For more information, see "Scientists Seeking NSF Funding Will Soon Be Required to Submit Data Management Plans"