Research Guides
Integrated Social Sciences Program: Data & Visualization
Guide for the online Integrated Social Sciences program
Data in the Social Sciences
Social scientists use data to analyze and examine social conditions and ideas. This data can come from qualitative or quantitative research methods. Examples of social science data include survey data (opinion polls, voting records), nonsurvey data (images, maps, sound, video), raw measurements (numeric tables, government statistics), text (fieldnotes, transcripts, blogs, emails) and spatial data (zonal, event, spatial referent).
To learn more about how data is used in the social sciences, check out the Glossary of Social Science Terms and How to Cite Data properly.
Finding Data
- SAGE Research Methods Online (SRM) This link opens in a new window
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Choose from over 350 datasets using data from real research. Browse by method, discipline or data type. Find data under "Practice Data Analysis" - Explore Census Data This link opens in a new windowCensus and survey data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas.
- ProQuest Statistical Insight This link opens in a new window
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Index to governmental and private statistical data. - MarketResearch.com Academic This link opens in a new window
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Market research reports on a wide variety of topics.
- Pew Research DataPublic opinion from 1997 to present.
- Census.govSite for the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Data.govProvides deep descriptions of the Federal datasets, info about how to access them, and tools to leverage government data
- CDC Data & StatisticsContains data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control
- Geospatial Data ResourcesFocuses on Puget Sound and Washington State with some national and international datasets
Data Visualization
- Social Explorer This link opens in a new window
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Maps and reports based on U.S. Census and other data sources, 1790 to present. - Sage Data This link opens in a new window
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Social-science data and statistics from a variety of sources.
- World DataBankDataBank is an analysis and visualization tool from the World Bank Group that contains collections of time series data on a variety of topics. You can create your own queries to generate tables, charts, and maps. Indicators include import and export statistics.
- Information Is BeautifulSite dedicated to illustrating multiple points of view through data visualization
A voronoi treemap of the mammals, based on the Tree of Life dataset. Licenses under CC BY 2.0
- Tableau Public SoftwareTableau Public is a free software that can allow you to connect to a spreadsheet or data file and create interactive data visualizations for the web.
- UW IT Connect-- TableauInfo from UW IT on accessing and using Tableau for UW student, faculty and staff