Module 5 - Using Data - MSOL 520 - Data Driven Decision Making for Executives

Using Data

Google Dataset Search (beta)
Launched September 2018, Google builds on those organizations using open data practices. " ...you can find references to most datasets in environmental and social sciences, as well as data from other disciplines including government data and data provided by news organizations, such as ProPublica."
Making it easier to discover datasets

SAGE Research Methods
by Cynthia Hunt Last Updated Jan 7, 2025 10 views this year

SAGE Research Methods
SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. Featuring a library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher, SAGE Research Methods is the essential online tool for researchers.

Videos

Big Data: How Data Analytics Is Transforming the World
Data Analytics - What's the "Big" Idea? [37 Minutes]

Big Data
From science to sales, from sociology to sports, data analytics is unraveling the fascinating secrets hidden in numbers, patterns, relationships, and information of every kind. Get introduced to the key concepts, methods, and accomplishments of this versatile approach to problem solving. See the big picture of big data and the crucial role of data analytics.

Sample the tremendous scope and power of data analytics, which is transforming science, business, medicine, public policy, and many other spheres of modern life. Investigate why this revolution is happening now, and look at some common misconceptions about data analysis.

Search Tips for Data Analytics

Think about the main ideas in your research question. For example, in the question,"What are some best practices related to web analytics?" the main ideas are: best practices and web analytics.

These keywords can be used in your search statement:

"best practices" AND "web analytics"

If you do not find enough useful articles, expand your search by using OR to include additional, related keywords:

"best practices" AND ("web analytics" OR "google analytics")

Look through the subject terms, title, and abstract of useful articles you find for keywords related to those that you have used - then try connecting them using OR as shown above. This will often locate useful articles missed in your first search.

Many databases allow you to use "*" (an asterisk) to truncate a term. Truncating allows you to search for all variations of a word using a single search. For example, a search for ...

metric*

... will find articles containing both "metric" and "metrics" with one search. Broadening a search like this can help you find more useful articles.

NOT lets you exclude words from your search to remove unhelpful articles from your results:

"web analytics" AND conversions NOT (retail OR sales)

Subject terms are words assigned by a database's managers to all articles in it that have the same subject. In SingleSearch, for example, all articles on web analytics are assigned the subject term "WEB analytics." Because these terms are assigned to all articles on a specific topic, using a subject heading as a search term will retrieve only articles on that particular topic. Databases that use subject terms allow you to use their advanced search page to search only the subject terms field of the articles they contain.