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Re: AHS Codebook Suggestion

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Dear All:

A dictionary would be extremely helpful. Thanks, Scott.

Sandee


At 07:57 PM 06/26/2003 -0400, ahslistserv@huduser.gov wrote:
>From: American Housing Survey (AHS) ListServ <ahs@huduser.gov>
>
>
>
>Dav has summed up pretty well what I am suggesting. I thought I would just
>add an example. I am proposing that in addition to the current codebook,
>we put out a data dictionary file showing just the variables and value
>labels, as is done for other Census Bureau surveys. As an example, for one
>variable, the data dictionary (from the SIPP data set) contains:
>
>D EUNITS 1 82
>T HH: Number of housing units
> How many housing units, both occupied and
> vacant, are there in this structure?
>U All persons
>V 1 .One, detached
>V 2 .One, attached
>V 3 .Two
>V 4 .3:4
>V 5 .5-9
>V 6 .10-19
>V 7 .20-49
>V 8 .50 or more
>
>
>
>ahslistserv@huduser.gov
>To:Scott.J.Susin@census.gov
>cc:
>06/25/2003 02:13 PM
>Subject: AHS Codebook Suggestion
>
>david_a._vandenbroucke
>
>
>From: American Housing Survey (AHS) ListServ <ahs@huduser.gov>
>
>My call for comments on the codebook generated a suggestion from one of my AHS
>colleagues at the Census Bureau, Scott Susin. Scott feels that the current
>codebook is:
>
>* Confusing to new users
>* Difficult to search, since one gets too many "hits" while trying to find the >definition of a variable.
>* Difficult to copy and paste from
>* Frustrating for programmers who just want to find the variable that covers a
>particular subject
>
>He suggests that in addition to the codebook, the AHS should have a data
>dictionary. This dictionary would simply list the variables, their subjects,
>and their coding. He further proposes that the dictionary would be a simple
>ASCII file, not a PDF.
>
>Examples of the sort of document that is being proposed can be found at:
>
>https://dataferrett.census.gov/
>
>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cgi-bin/archive.prl?study=2625&path=ICPSR&allflag=open
>
>In each case, just click on the links to the data dictionaries. These are
>fairly big text files.
>
>I am in the awkward position of asking for comments on a propsal whose purpose
>I don't entirely understand. I hope that Scott will jump in here and explain
>this proposal better than I can do at second hand. It may be that I no longer
>understand how difficult the AHS microdata files are for new users. Thus, I am
>particularly interested in comments from people who are either new to the AHS
>or who need to teach new users. Do you find the same problems with the
>codebook? Would a data dictionary help?
>
>As an alternative, we are considering reorganizing the current codebook to put
>the lists of variables (alphabetically and by subject) near the end of the
>document, so that doing a "find" in Acrobat Reader will more often hit the
>variable definition rather than the list entries. We may use a special
>character after the variable name (for example REGION *) to make it easier to
>search specifically for the definition. We also thought of adding a "how to
>use this codebook" section, but we wondered if anyone actually reads those.
>
>Dav Vandenbroucke
>Economist
>U.S. Dept. HUD
>david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
>202-708-1060 ext. 5890
>
>
>
>
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Sandra J. Newman, Ph.D.
Director
Professor of Policy Studies
Institute for Policy Studies
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