IA5SIST Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 1978)

ACTION GROUP REPORTS

The Action Group reports which follow are a result of the Action Group
discussions at the lASSIST Annual Conference, Itasca. Illinois, in Febru-
ary, 1978. Those not appearing in this issue of the Newsletter will be
published in subsequent issues. The Reports are printed as tiled by the
chairpersons of the action groups.

If you would like a copy of the
style manual, contact: Barbara B.
Noble, Center for Advanced Computa-

ACTION IN THE tion. University of Illinois, Ur-
DOCUmEiITATION ACTION bana, IL 61301, telephone (217)
G^OUP 333-3234 before April 1, 1978, or

at Bureau of Social Science Re-
The Documentation Action Group search. Suite 700, 1990 H St. N.H.,

is currently working on two pro- Washington, DC 20036 after April
iects of interest to lASSIST mem- 1.

bers; a study description form and .

a style manual for documentation of Sheldon Laube, Chair
machine readable data.

The study description form has
been under development for some DATA ORGANIZATION AND
time, mostly in Europe, under the ^1111511151 ICTTUN
auspices of the International Fed- 5551?
eration or Data Organizations
(IFDO) . The purpose oi the study The DOM AG met for two sessions
description form is to present in a on Thursday, February 9th at the
standard outline format the essen- meeting held in Itasca. During
tial facts about a machine-readable these sessions the following activ-
data file. The main sections are: ities were carried out:
identification and acknowledgements
(study title, principal investiga- 1. Ms. Nancy Morrison from
tor, data distributor); analysis the University of Illi-
conditions (purpose of study, num- nois has been active in
ber of units and variables, etc.) ; the formation of the new
reanalysis conditions (data condi- SPSS User's Group. Nancy
tion, accessibility, documentation, provided the AG with a
etc.): references to publications; report on the progress of
and Background variables (demo- the User's group. This
graphic and socioeconomic) . Batch report stressed four ma-
and interactive programs in IBM jor points.
OS/360 Assembler Language and PL/1
are available for entering and a) An organizing commit-
printing study descriptions. tee is presently pre-

paring the by-laws for
The style manual for documenta- the group that will

tion of machine-readable data is make it separate from
the product of a research project SPSS, Inc..
undertaken by the University of Il-
linois for the US Department of b) A membership drive is
Justice. The manual is intended to planned for April,
be a general guide for the format 1978. Individuals in-
and contents of user's guides terested in being
(those things we sometimes call placed on the mailing
•'codebooks") for HRDF. The basic list for membership
sections of a user's guide dis- materials should write
cussed are: title page, abstract, to 'As. Nancy Morrison,
project history, processing his- Social Sciences Quan-
tory, codebook, and appendices. titative Laboratory,

Lincoln Hall, Univer-
The Documentation Action Group sity of Illinois, Ur-

and the projects' sponsors are in- bana. 111. 51801.
terested in field testing both the
study description form and the c) The group plans to act
user's guide style manual, and in as a communication ve-
any comments or suggestions. hide among SPSS

users.
For more information about the

study description project contact: d) It will act as a co-
Dr. Elliott M- Avendon, Leisure herent group that can
Studies Data Bank, Waterloo Re- provide input to SPSS,
search Institute, University of Inc.
Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L,
3G1, telephone (519) 885-1211.

- 23 -



IAS5IST Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 1978)

2. A workshop was conducted
on the treatment of mul-
tiply-punched data. A
round table approach was
employed and individuals
discussed procedures used
by the organizations they
represent. We were for-
tunate to have present
during this session Roald
Buhler of Princeton Uni-
versity. Dr. Buhler dis-
cussed a program (stand
alone) at Princeton that
he uses in conjunction
with P-STAT. In addi-
tion, Mr. William Gjert-
sen of the SA3 Institute
reported that the new
version of SAS will be
capable of handling mul-
ti-punch data. Terry
Stewart of the Leisure
Studies Data Bank, Uni-
versity of Waterloo and
Bill oammell and Gary
Grandon, both from the
University of Connecti-
cut, shared information
on procedures used at
their respective instal-
lations.

3. Dr. Richard Roistacner
reported on the progress
of the Data Inter-cnange
File concept which was
first introduced to the
DOM AG at the first lAS-
SIST North American Work-
ing Conference in Floriaa
last year.

At the Itasca confer-
ence, Dick met with rep-
resentatives of SPSS,
SAS, P-STAT, OSIBIS III,
OSIRIS IV and TPL. Tne
outcome of this meeting
was that everyone was in
agreement that the time
had come for an inter-
cnange file prototype to
be developed and tae ac-
tual coding should start
in the near future. In
addition, a national on-
line conference will be
set up this spring to
keep the discussion of
the interchange file ac-
tive. Future develop-
ments on this subject
will be reported in lAS-
SIST newsletters.

H. There was an active dis-
cussion on the effective-
ness of the DOM AG m its
present format. Those of
us who have been with
this action group since
its inception have become
increasingly distressed
with our inability to
achieve a high level or

activity on all the items
in our AG mandate (see
Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 1)

We have experienced
considerable success in
providing a form for the
transfer of information
and informal training.
Unfortunately, the larger
task of investigating and
evaluating "existing pro-
cedures for data and
documentation preparation
and data management soft-
ware and hardware capa-
bilities" has only been
marginally attended to.
Some of the reasons of-
fered for this problem
were lack of time to-
gether and resources,
over ambitious expecta-
tions, and an overlapping
ot interests with other
AG's. Whatever the rea-
son, it aopears that tnis
is a point of discussion
that should involve all
interested parties. You
are encouraged to provide
input to Bill Gammell,
Box U-164, University of
Connecticut, Storrs, Con-
necticut. 06268

On the brighter side of
things, Alice Bobbin (DAD
A3) reported to us that
our group supplied 5 of
the 9 abstracts received
for portions
to Providing
ence Data
Please refer
AG report in this issue
for aetails concerning
this project.

William Gammell, Chair

ACTION GROUP ON PROCESS-
?RDXUC1D~MTI

Priority; #J

we wound up discussions on our
highest priority project, the Di-
rectory of Directories (D of D's).
Satisfied that we published a good
start of the American list, (News-
letter Vol. 1, No. 4) , we turned
our discussions to the Canadian
list. It was agreed the best wav
to proceed would be to tap the re-
sources of the Data Clearinghouse.
We estimate that some information
will be ready by March 31 and will
be published m the forthcoming
June issue of the Newsletter™ This
would be appended by addenda to the
American list. This addenda will
be additional listings of directo-

of A guide
Social Sci-

Service.
to the DAD

24 -



lASSIST Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 1978)

ries, and another
announcements and b
are published separa
rectories. What im
to mind was announcem
publicaly available
Statistical Reporter,
Register, the Data
and others. When t
ject is printed once
It were) the action
tempt to edit a comp
which can be updated
basis after that,
elements for each ent
Vol. 1 No. 3 p. 13) w
ered in that final ed
vision this to be co
the projected next N
meeting in Ottawa, Ma
is later than our pr
cation for the Upp
However, absences tr
conference and oth
have retarded our pr
assessment of Priorit
all along that it wa
to be mastered and 1
be significant. On
have been successful

catagory of
ulletins that
tely from di-
mediately came
ents of recent
data in the

the Federal
Clearinghouse

,

he entire pro-
(by stages as

group will at-
lete D of D's,

on a yearly
The essential
ry (Newsletter
ill Ee consid-
ition. We en-
mpleted before
orth American
y 1979. This
ojected publi-
sula meeting,
om the Itasca
er exigencies
ogress. Our
y #1 has been
s small enough
arge enough to
that count, we

Priorities #2 and ±3

Regarding our second priority.
An Inventory of Existing Guide-
lines, etc., and our third priority
project. An Inventory of Proce-
dures, etc. (Newsletter Vol. 1 Nr.
2 pp. 14-15) we aeciSed to divide
into subcommittees as follows: Don
Harrison will begin to bring to-
gether into one package a discus-
sion of the guidelines and proce-
dures existing today in the united
States Federal government both in
the National Archives and in those
Federal agencies that create
HRDF's. Tony Falsetto will bring
together a similar document for the
Canadian Federal government. Char-
lotte Bochan and Harriet Dhanak
will form a subcommittee to explore
a number of alternatives necessary
to proceed with institutions in the
private sector. The larger corpo-
rations such as Hand and ATST might
provide a basis for a representa-
tive sampling of guidelines and
procedures. Smaller corporations
might also be gueried but might not
provide such a return. United
States state governments and Cana-
dian provincial governments, while
still on the threshold of creating
and servicing MRDF's will also be
significant. A projected telephone
survey by the Society of American
Archivists, when completed, might
add to this and other projects by

PPDAG.
look i
subcom
the W
area w
these
freque
bers i
beth P
newest
Subcom
back t

Don Harris
nto this sur
mittee compos
ashington

,

ill attempt
concepts

nt local meet
nclude Don H
owell, Himi

memfcer, De
mittee repor
o Don by Frid

on
vey.
ed o
DC
to
tog

ings
arri
Scha
bbie
ts
ay M

was asked to
Also, a

f members in
metropolitan
tie some of
ether with
. These mem-
son, Eliza-
de, and our

Pomerance.
will be due
arch 31.

This project cannot be initiated
before projects #2 and #3 are com-
plete. Therefore, no progress was
reported.

Iliter^Action Grou£ Cooperation

PPD
e Do
e a
ript
lope
r of
rev

th n
ovid
on
oble
is s
nth.

AG w
cume
ppli
ion
d b
PP

lew
on-s
e f e
AG
ms i
houl

ill
ntat
cati
form
sev

AG w
the
urve
edba
rega
n it
d be

provide
ion Acti
on of th

which h
eral memb
ill work
form for
y data,
ck to th
rding an
s applica
complete

feedb
on Gr
e stu
as b
ers.
with
gene

We wi
e doc
y. po
lion
d in

ack to
oup on
dy de-
een de-
A mem-

this AG
ral use
11 also
umenta-
tential
to PPD.
about a

Deaccessioninq PPD

Duri
asca me
f led a
ters d
without
researc
agreed
the abs
tuted a
Ke will
Newslet
problem
critiqu
sion at

ng th(
eting,
ser ioi
eacces
cons;

Vi
to wc
ence
ction

prei
ter tl
and

es in
the (

works
part
pro

ionin
erati
ue.
k on
f a
roup
re so
t wi
all f
repar
tawa

hops
icip
blem
g un
on

Do
this
form
for
meth
11 i
or
at io
meet

of
ants
, da
ique
of po
n H

pro
ally
acqui
ing
denti
comme
n for
ing.

the It-
identi-
ta cen-
HRDF's

tential
arrison
ject in
consti-
sition.
for t he

the
nts and
a ses-

Glossary

- 25