The GEODE project is concerned with the technologies behind the distribution of ‘occupational information’ within the social science research community. Occupational information refers to summary statistics and data which are associated with particular occupational positions. Typical examples are derivation matrices for social class classifications, and 'crosswalks' designed to allow for linkage between different occupational unit group schemes. Such information is used by many social research projects (and is often already published on other websites), but is not always available to non-specialists in an easily accessible form. In GEODE, we seek to compile a 'library' of occupational information resouces, and make them readily available to other social scientists.
The GEODE project makes considerable use of occupational information provided via the CAMSIS project (see in particular the CAMSIS project's 'occupational classifications' page, which, in time, the GEODE project will supersede). However it also collates occupational information from many other resources. Although the GEODE project is based in the UK, and has a number of UK based resources, the project has an internatonal orientation, with a great many occupational information resources being provided from other countries.
Send us your occupational information!
GEODE works by seeking to collect together any and every 'occupational information resouce' of potential value to social science researchers. Resouces can be deposited at the GEODE portal (typically, resources are deposited by the person who created the resource, but they can also be supplied on behalf of a different original producer). From the portal, they are catalogued with appropriate metadata, and they may then be made available to other users (e.g. downloaded). The more people who contribute to GEODE, therefore, the more effective the resource will become.
The GEODE project is an attempt to use ‘eScience’ and ‘Grid’ technologies to facilitate access to occupational information. These technologies involve a particular form of computing resource – indeed, a wider intention of the project is to develop and promote these technologies as examples of ‘eSocial Science’. This aspect of the project involves collaborations with the UK's National e-Science Centre and with the ESRC's programme in e-Social Science. GEODE is being developed as part of the DAMES research Node, and in fact GEODE is one of three similar portal-based services developed in DAMES for accessing specialist information resources - the others being a resource for data on educational qualifications (GEEDE) and an resource for data on ethnic minorities (GEMDE).
Portal services
Access to GEODE is via an online 'portal' environment. This is used because the portal environment supports layered secure access to the resources: users can login to the portal at a 'guest' level in a way which allows them to explore and download resources, but not upload material (i.e. similar to 'read only' access); or users can login as a registered user, in a way which gives them access to more services, including the option of uploading new material to the portal (i.e., similar to 'read and write' access). JUMP TO LINK FOR PORTAL LOGIN.
We actually have two GEODE portals:
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GEODE Portal, Version 1: first launched in 2006, this is no longer in full development
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GEODE portal, Version 2: first prototype launched Jan. 2010; at present fully developed but with some known bugs (Jan 2012)
A workshop held in January 2012 at University of Stirling featured materials introducing the contribution of GEODE, as well as a workbook handout which includes exercises in using GEODE and in handling occupational data.
A list of publications associated with the GEODE project is available at this website.
Since 2008, work on GEODE has been funded as part of the DAMES ('Data Management through e-Social Science') research Node based at the Universities of Stirling and Glasgow. This ESRC research Node is part of the UK's programme in e-Social Science. Previously, the project was funded 2005-7 by the ESRC within the 'Small Grants in eSocial Science' scheme.
Occupational Information Portal
The GEODE portal provides an online environment through which social researchers can obtain and utilise occupational information resources.
We have two portals available, version 1 and version 2. Version 2 has been available since autumn 2010 as the principal GEODE resource, and version 1 is available for backward compatability. We are still working to improve the functionality of the version 2 portal.
[Alternative: enter using https for secure access] June 2010: the version 1 portal is no longer being updated, but resources on it are still available for download, and new resources sent to it are still stored safely
To enter the version 1 portal as a 'guest':
To enter the version 1 portal with a personalised account:
Authors: Larry Tan, with further contributions from Paul Lambert, Ken Turner and Richard Sinnott (see GEODE contacts) |
March 2011: the version 2 portal has been fully functional since November 2010. We are still in the process of adding further services, and, at time of writing, we also have some known bugs that you could experience, unfortunately.
To use the version 2 portal with 'guest' level access:
To use the version 2 portal with registered user level access:
Browsers: The version 2 portal works best with recent browsers (e.g. Firefox 3.5, IE7 and above). We would encourage you to enter the site, register, search and explore, and upload and edit your own data, but we would pre-warn that you might experience bugs in doing this (we'd welcome your feedback and any reports of bugs if you find them, such as contacting the project staff by email - e.g. Paul Lambert). Authors: Guy Warner, with further contributions from Larry Tan, Jesse Blum, Simon Jones, Paul Lambert, Ken Turner (see DAMES contacts) |
Entering the GEODE portal requires either 'guest' or 'personalised' login details. Guest users may use all services except for the facilities to deposit their own occupational information at GEODE. Users with personalised accounts have the additional facility to deposit data to the GEODE server. Usually, it will be adequate to enter the portal as a guest.
Some comments on using the GEODE portal [Jan 2012]:
- First access was on 1 March 2010 (Version 2); 25th October 2006 (Version 1)
- Help on using the portal is available from our 'Help and guidance' section. A guide covering Version 2 is available in materials from the DAMES workshp of 30 Jan 2012. An extended guide to Version 1 of the portal is in the GEODE project technical papers 1 and 2
- Health warning 1: Many facilities in the version 2 portal would still benefit from further developed and include a few known bugs, recent problems including:
- DEC 2012, newly uploaded files not available to search queries
- OCT 2012, futher work still planned on file-matching facilities
- Health warning 2: The version 2 portal works best with the Firefox browser.
- Things will also work better if you follow indicated links to move between pages within the portal (rather than using your browser's 'back' and 'forward' buttons)
- Health warning 3: When you first go to use the version 2 portal, on most browsers you will ordinarily trigger 'untrusted site' warning messages
- Health warning 4: The version 1 portal does still work, but it isn't being routinely monitored (please contact us if you want to use it)
(it is fine to go ahead and trust these, which are a consequence of our using the Liferay software - for belt-and-braces background see the Liferay website).
The aims of the portal are to provide an environment which allows users to:
- Search for appropriate occupational information resources
- Deposit occupational information resources into a standardised format (generating an'Occupational Information Depository')
- Comment / add user ratings on the quality of occupational information resouces
- Match occupational data (instructions here - for v1): Use the portal to securely link social science micro-data with appropriate occupational information (e.g. a typical application would be whereby a file with occupational unit group data is linked to the portal service, allowing a range of occupationally based social classification schemes to be attached to it [version 1 file matching facilities require Java, with Web Start, (Java 2, Edition 5.0, version 1.5.0_06 or above)].
List of OUG titles. A key feature of the GEODE index service is a consistent naming convention for all possible 'Occupational Unit Group' (OUGs). On this page we present a list of all OUGs used in any resources within GEODE. This list is partly produced for our own purposes,
