Instructions for Depositing Data to the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention Data Repository
The Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP) Data Repository welcomes and encourages deposits of digital data. We provide a free self-publishing deposit option via openICPSR and an option for sponsored projects. Data collections archived in the IFIP Data Repository are distributed for research use. If your dataset relates to work supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded firearm research coordinating center, or if you are interested in paid data curation services, please contact us for further deposit options.
Help with Depositing Data
- The ICPSR Data Preparation Guide provides a comprehensive overview of data management steps that should be taken prior to depositing data.
- Contact us with any questions you have at: nacjd@icpsr.umich.edu.
- For deposits that involve physical materials, please email: deposit@icpsr.umich.edu.
What Should My Deposit Include?
Deposits should include all data and documentation necessary to read and interpret the data collection independently. Instructions for preparing data are listed below. For a discussion of best practices in preparing data for sharing, please refer to ICPSR's Guide to Social Science Data Preparation and Archiving, 6th Edition. See also ICPSR's Guidelines for Effective Data Management Plans.
Data File(s)
We encourage depositors to submit data as SAS, SPSS, or Stata files. ASCII files are also acceptable as long as they are accompanied by data definition statements. Datasets in other formats are accepted as well. Each variable in the data collection should have a set of exhaustive, mutually-exclusive codes. Variable labels and value labels should clearly describe the information or question recorded in that variable. Missing data codes should be defined. When applicable, all identifying information should be removed from the records to ensure confidentiality.
Documentation
Documentation files are integral to interpreting data collections. Examples of documentation files include:
- Codebooks
- Data collection instruments
- Summary statistics
- Project summaries
- Bibliographies of publications pertaining to the data
We strongly encourage depositors to provide citations of articles that use data when they archive data. Documentation can be submitted as Microsoft Word, ASCII, and DDI XML files. Documentation that has the question text integrated with variable information is preferred.
Study descriptions are valuable resources to data users and include general information, such as study titles and summaries, as well as more detailed information about the study design and methodology. Depositors are strongly encouraged to describe their data projects fully.