LibGuides: SCM 211: Business Statistics: Overview

Welcome

Welcome to the library's course guide for SCM 211: Business Statistics, created for Rachel Petrak's Winter 2020 class.

The resources on this page will help you with your projects and assignments. The library subscribes to some of these resources but others are freely available online.

Please reach out to a librarian if you have questions about using a resource or are having difficulty finding what you need.

SAGE Research Methods Online This link opens in a new window
Books, journals, reference books, videos, podcasts, data-sets, and case studies on social science research methods.
Sage Research Methods includes over 2,000 books, reference books, journal articles, videos, datasets, and case studies on all aspects of social science research methodology. Browse the methods map or the list of methods to identify a social science method to pursue further. Includes a project planning tool and the "Which Stats Test" tool to identify the best statistical method for your project. Includes the notable "little green book" series (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences) and the "little blue book" series (Qualitative Research Methods).

Demographic and Social Datasets

General Social Survey
The GSS gathers data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes. Hundreds of trends have been tracked since 1972. In addition, since the GSS adopted questions from earlier surveys, trends can be followed for up to 80 years.

U.S. Census Bureau This link opens in a new window
The two main survey programs to investigate will be the Decennial Census, which is a short survey taken every year to get a count of the country' population, and the American Community Survey, which contains several 1 or 5 year sample surveys to track changes in population between census years. The ACS also asks more questions than the Census and gathers more information about your community.

A quick tip is to limit by geography first and then to look for a particular theme or topic. More help on using Census data can be found through the Census Academy, especially the Data Gems section.
Pew Research Center This link opens in a new window
Nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.

You must create an account with Pew to download datasets. Click on "Datasets" under any topic tab to view a list of available data and to download sets.
The Pew Research Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions.

Pew Research is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization and a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. All of its reports and datasets are made freely available in order to inform the public, the press and policymakers.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) This link opens in a new window
Research & datasets on census enumerations; community/urban studies; conflict; economics; education; geography & environment; government bodies; health care; international systems; political behavior & attitudes; organizational behavior; social indicators.

Business & Economic Datasets

Statista This link opens in a new window
Portal for current statistics from private and government sources on wide range of topics.
Ready-made statistical charts, graphs and tables on marketing, demographics, communication, technology, politics, health, leisure and public opinion polls. About 20 percent of the data in Statista comes from government sources like the World Bank and the U.S. Census. The rest comes from industry, marketing, and trade groups. The tables, charts and graphs can be downloaded as images or into Microsoft Powerpoint and Excel.
FRED Economic Data This link opens in a new window
Provides US and International time series economic data from 79 sources.
FRED Economic data provides comprehensive economic data, including banking & finance, population, employment, labor market, national accounts, production & business activity, prices, international data, U.S. regional data, and academic data. This database is governed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

All Surveys & Programs | U.S. Census Bureau
The Census Bureau conducts more than 130 surveys and programs including many related to business, jobs, and finance.

Politics and Government Datasets

Data.gov - Federal and Executive Branch generated data sets This link opens in a new window
Over 150,000 datasets in the sciences, social sciences, business, and government.
Includes data on the topics agriculture, business, climate, consumer, ecosystems, education, energy, finance, health, local government, manufacturing, ocean, public safety, and science & research.

Data from FiveThirtyEight
Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight has grown in popularity since its inception in 2008. The focus of the site is a mixture of politics and sports with a major data component to most of its news coverage.
more info...less info...
Datasets currently go back as far as 2014. The site is currently affiliated with ABC News (part of the Walt Disney Company), and has previously been affiliated with The New York Times (2010 - 2013) and ESPN (2014 - 2018).
Google Public Data Explorer
A directory of 137 datasets from governments around the world. Some basic graphing is also available.

Multi-disciplinary Dataset Search Engines and Repositories

SAGE Research Methods: Datasets This link opens in a new window
Collection of datasets developed to help learn research methods.
A collection of teaching datasets that can be used to support the teaching and learning of quantitative and qualitative analytical methods used in the social sciences. These are datasets taken from real research projects, but edited and cleaned for teaching purposes. Each dataset will be accompanied by a short clear narrative description of the data and easy-to-follow instructions on how to apply the research method.
Data.gov - Federal and Executive Branch generated data sets This link opens in a new window
Over 150,000 datasets in the sciences, social sciences, business, and government.
Includes data on the topics agriculture, business, climate, consumer, ecosystems, education, energy, finance, health, local government, manufacturing, ocean, public safety, and science & research.
Google Dataset Search This link opens in a new window
Search for millions of datasets in digital repositories worldwide.
Allows you to limit your search by download format (tables, documents, images, text, and other formats), usage rights, and other criteria.

Kaggle Datasets
Kaggle is a "data science community," with datasets that are curated/uploaded by community members or pulled from various open web based repositories. It can be a bit of a Wild West, but the descriptions are top notch.
more info...less info...
Additional tools include their discussion board and courses to help individuals learn about data science.
Awesome Pubic Datasets |GitHub
"This list of a topic-centric public data sources in high quality. They are collected and tidied from blogs, answers, and user responses."
more info...less info...
GitHb is an online community for software developers.

SAGE Stats This link opens in a new window
Data series or single data measures over time about U.S. geographies across 17 high-interest research areas, as far back as 1980.
Sage Stats is a collection of data measures that span all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Local Stats is a collection of data measures that span all counties, cities, and metropolitan statistical areas. Dating back more than 20 years, each data series is displayed in a clear and consistent format with detailed source information. Topics covered include the economy, education, crime, government finance, health, population, religion, social welfare, and transportation.