Research Data Services

Data Services staff and library faculty are available for workshops and one-on-one consultations to help you find, manage, analyze, and visualize the data you need for your coursework and use in your research.  View our current workshop schedule to register.

Data Services is excited to work with you but please note the following:

• Plan ahead!  Appointments are scheduled between 9-4 pm, Monday-Friday.  If you are not able to meet during these times, please let us know about your time constraints.  We have had such a great response to our service, we book appointments 1-2 weeks out, especially during midterms and finals.  

• We can explain data concepts, but we cannot help you complete a problem set. 

• We understand that learning new software can be intimidating, but we cannot "give you a tour" on a research consult.   We need you to come prepared with data to work with.   We are however, happy to provide videos and other resources, you can view on your own time.  A great place to start is always LinkedIn Learning, provided by TLTC @SHU.

• We can spend ½ hour with you per appointment, but we cannot guarantee weekly appointments.

• If you need more time to solidify data concepts, we ask that you reach out to your professor or form a study group with your classmates.

Questions?  Reach out to data.services@shu.edu

Alternative link to Data Services Appointment form

Research Data Services News

Finding Data

We can help you find reliable data for your research topic including:

• finding data from reputable organizations in usable formats
• assisting with changing formats or importing spreadsheet data into analytics packages
• directing you to data repositories that SHU subscribes to like Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
• locating free data sources  (Simply adding the word dataset or statistics to your keyword search can lead you to key agencies)

Managing Data

We can help you manage your data by:

• creating and actively managing a Data Management Plan (DMP), required by many granting agencies
• organizing files logically, with file names and folder structures for easy retrieval
• storing files and written information securely on your own computer, OneDrive or cloud storage
• cleaning your data, with explicit units, explanations for missing values, and other metadata to make your data make sense

Analyzing Data

Learn software tools to help make sense of your data.  We have a data analyst who can assist with quantitative and qualitative programs including Excel, R, SPSS, Stata, Atlas.ti, and Qualtrics.

Visualizing Data

Master the ability of manipulating text or spreadsheet data in a range of open source tools.  Want to get started?  Visit our Data Visualization Guide.  We can also help you with advanced tools like Tableau.