[1]
In September 1999 Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VCIOM) initiated a project with the aim of creating an open sociological archive, an institution that had existed in Russia never before. The financial support for this project came from the Ford Foundation. The project manager is Lyudmila Khakhulina and the project coordinator Larissa Kosova.
It had become obvious by then that there was a definite need for such an archive. Starting in the late 1980s, sociologists had spoken about the need to create a national archive on several occasions. However, it was not until the late 1990s that all the necessary conditions for this were available. Firstly, various sociological organizations had acquired experience in conducting surveys which were representative of Russia, as well as international surveys which were of scientific value to a wide circle of researchers. Secondly, in addition to these organizations, there was an increasing number of individual researchers and teams of researchers who were conducting sociological surveys including studies financed through grants from Russian and foreign funds, for example the Ford Foundation. The data obtained in these surveys, however, were used only by the researchers themselves and were unavailable to other users, a fact which runs counter to the very idea of this support. Thirdly, the development of sociological education in Russia over a period of at least 10 years had resulted in a wide circle of potential users of sociological data (students, post-graduates, teachers), who were unable to conduct surveys themselves. Fourthly, modern electronic technologies made it possible to solve the problem of storing and disseminating the data in a more efficient way than 15-20 years ago. Taking these facts into account, we set ourselves the following tasks:
[2] The main feature of our approach is that this work is done by Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VCIOM) in cooperation with other sociological institutes which conduct representative surveys. The implementation of the project has yielded the following results:
[3] Since we are just starting to compile a sociological archive, we limited ourselves solely to archiving data from quantitative surveys. Out of all the quantitative surveys, our priority was those in which consumers show the most interest (as requests to VCIOM archive show). These are:
[4] We now have 3 types of survey in our archive:
[5] The requirements relating to the surveys deposited in the archive are practically the same as in all other archives. Of course, additional work had to be done to harmonize the surveys with the archiving requirements. This work was carried out by the organizations (individuals) which deposited their surveys in the archive.
[6] In the pilot stage payment was made for the work involved in harmonizing the data and documentation with the rules of archiving. During the first stages of compiling the archive it was firstly necessary to get potential consumers interested in depositing their surveys and secondly to obtain information for the archive which could meet the requirements. However, this task – encouraging the consumers to deposit their surveys in the archive and doing the necessary work preparing their data for the archive –is still one of the main aspects of our work with potential depositors. Another problem that we faced is archiving sociological surveys from the Soviet period, i.e. the surveys conducted at a time when there were no personal computers. The change from one storage format (large electronic computing machines for common use) to another format, which was caused by the changeover to personal computers, coincided with the transitional period, which was difficult for many sociological institutes. As a result, a large number of the surveys are stored in old formats and require a lot of work to convert these data into the modern format. We are intending to convert these data together with the interested institutes. With our assistance, the Department of Sociology of the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering has converted the 1975-1999 time budgets into the SPSS Portable file. We are doing this because we believe that the archive is a national information resource storing a part of the cultural heritage of the nation.
[7] It is well known that an information search firstly involves developing a rubric and secondly coding and classifying the surveys and questions in the questionnaires by these rubrics. We have designed a list of rubrics (making use of the UNESCO materials). We plan to use it in the information retrieval system which will automatically classify the surveys (names) and questionnaire questions. We are carrying out this work together with the information system «Russia» designed by Moscow State University using their thesaurus and software.
[8] We have worked out (and signed) documents which regulate the relations between the archive as an independent institution and the depositors. Documents regulating relations with the users are currently being developed. These relations are based on conceptual ideas common to all archives. Briefly, they can be formulated as follows. We regard the archive as a social institution established on the basis of a voluntary agreement of owners of sociological information and its users for the purpose of its storage and dissemination, i.e. to make it accessible to the users. The broad aim in establishing the archive is to promote scientific research in the field of social sciences. The archive therefore ensures that information is stored and also takes responsibility for its physical safety. The archive distributes this information among users in order to promote scientific research in the field of social sciences. Both of these functions are extremely important for Russia. First of all, conducting sociological surveys is becoming more and more expensive and the demands made on them are increasing. This is the reason why it is becoming more important than ever to use sociological data which are already available. Secondly, not every sociological institute has its own archive. In Russia this means that the preservation of survey data often lies in the “hands” of those bodies who conducted the surveys. The data therefore not only become unavailable to users, but may also be lost over the course of time.
[9] The task of working with information owners means making it common practice to deposit data in the archive and widening the range of organizations which can supply information, including grant-holders’ information. At the same time, the most important criterion for compiling the archive is not just more depositors, but also the quality of the information deposited. As our experience shows, the right to information is an important issue in the relations with the depositors (organizations and individuals). Proceeding from the general rules, we believe that the owner of information is its “producer”, while the archive only has copyright for the information to fulfill certain functions (storage and dissemination). The legal relations between the “producer” of the information and the archive were determined in the agreement on depositing information where the rights and liabilities of each side were described. Our next task is to harmonize this agreement with the current legislation of the Russian Federation, which regulates the relations between the depositor and the archive.
[10] The relations between the archive and the users of the information are also based on agreements in which the rights and liabilities of each party are specified. Information is provided to the user free of charge for secondary analysis for academic purposes and for teaching. The user may have to pay some costs which were incurred in data preparation, but he/she does not actually pay for the data. Since we now have the task of attracting users and making them part of the sociological community, these expenses are currently covered by the grants received for the development of the archive.
[11] The legal aspect of the relations between the archive and the user also needs to be seriously substantiated from the point of view of Russian legislation.
[12] The work on compiling the archive will be continued in all the directions described, namely:
[13] We are about to receive a three-year grant for further work on compiling the archive. This grant will enable us to make greater progress in solving the task that we have set ourselves. As for the main tasks, we believe they are as follows:
02 June 2004
[14]
In April 2002 the Program became a subdivision of the Independent Institute for Social Policy, Moscow.
Leading research organizations joined the project: the Institute of Sociology RAS, the Public Opinion Foundation, the Institute for Complex Sociological Research (the former Russian Independent Institute for Social and National Problems), the Russian Public Opinion and Market Research (ROMIR), the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. More than 60 surveys from the six leading sociological institutions have been collected. The Sociological Data Archive opens its collections for academic research to non-for-profit organizations, research collectives, and individual researches free of charge.
