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Kevin
Schürer The UK Data Archive (UKDA) has for many years collected, preserved and disseminates a wider variety of opinion poll survey data to the UK academic community. The bulk of this opinion poll data originates from the Gallop and MORI companies, and in the case of the former, the collection extends back nearly fifty years, to the late 1950s. These data have been used in a number of academic research projects, in particular by political scientists investigating political opinion and voting behaviour. However, given the scope, depth and time period covered by these data, it is believed that they form an under-utilised research resource. Equally, their potential as a teaching and learning resource has remained entirely untapped. The reasons for the general lack of secondary use of opinion poll data are many and varied, and will be discussed in the presentation. These include the structure and format of the data, and the lack of adequate question-level resource discovery tools. In order to promote the increased and wider use of these data, the UKDA has recently worked on a pilot project focusing its Gallop data holdings to make these data both easier to use and more 'visual'. The paper will discuss this project, together with future plans to develop web-based tools to provide interoperability between the data and the related and underlying metadata, allowing users to move seamlessly from content searching to interaction with the data, both within polls and across polls. Kevin
Schürer |