ANZLEAD

Background

Political science researchers are active and regular users of secondary public research and administrative data. There are long term, established data sources, national in scope and extensive in time (from Federation to current day), covering a breadth of the political science discipline. BUT these datasets have largely been developed in isolation, by different organisations, using bespoke vocabularies, identifier systems and data standards. 

Significant effort is required by researchers to find, access and integrate disparate sources of data to allow the study of complex political science problems. Particularly the integration of these sources across units of analysis, jurisdictions (that can change) and over time. 

Example: There is no shared or common Controlled Vocabulary of political parties used across the discipline (ALP, Australian Liberals, Liberal Party, Australian Liberal Party to name a few), add to this that electoral boundaries frequently change meaning one jurisdiction can lose/gain data from year to year. 

Result: Significant harmonisation work is required each time a researcher wishes to analyse data, for example, the changes in voting party over time.  

Project  

The ANZLEAD Data Asset Project aims to harmonise a number of significant and commonly used political science datasets to create a comprehensive and integrated data asset;  

• To develop and publish a Controlled Vocabulary by political researchers, for political researchers; 
• To provide a Data Portal for interrogation by researchers. 
• The ANZLEAD Data Asset Project will not create new research in the field, it will however create a new way of working, enhancing  

Overlap and integration with IRISS project 

As the ANZLEAD project developed through 2022, the establishment of the parallel IRISS project (Integrated Research Infrastructure for the Social Sciences) commenced in 2022. As the two projects developed, the joint requirements of the project became increasingly apparent, and the decision to establish joint services supporting both projects was adopted. 

Considering a cross domain gap to be adress the Political science researchers also frequently use secondary public research and administrative data. However, these datasets are often developed in isolation by different organizations using bespoke vocabularies and data standards. Same gap that IRISS aim to minizied trought to the Vocabulary and Integration Services. 

Researchers must find, access, and integrate disparate sources to study complex problems, especially across units of analysis, jurisdictions, and over time. This requires significant harmonisation work to analyze data like changes in voting party over time. 

As a result, the development of the ANZLEAD project has been progressively harmonised with the activities of the IRISS project, including adoption of related technologies and workflows. The ANZLEAD concept map highlighted the need for a different technology to author and publish domain ontologies, and for the publishing, adoption and harmonisation of data content. As part of the joint activities of the IRISS and ANZLEAD.

Have access to the ANZLEAD content thourghtout:

Research Vocabularies Australia

ADA Dataverse 

Exploring the metadata publishing and harmonization using Colectica_ IRISS… 

Partners 

• Griffith University 
• The University of Adelaide 
• The University of Auckland 
• The University of Melbourne 
• The University of Sydney 
• The University of Western Australia 
• Victoria University of Wellington