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Data Terminology / Glossary

glossary

administrative data: Administrative data is data collected from official records.
aggregate data: Aggregate data is data that is representitive of a number of individual samples, usually produced by a statistical or mathematical proceedure (e.g. frequency counts).
census: A census is a survey that contacts every single entity (e.g. people or organizations) in the population.
cross-sectional: Cross-sectional data is data gathered at a single point in time.
data: Data is raw input for statistical analysis.
Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) codes: Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) codes are standardized numeric or alphabetic codes used to ensure uniform identification of geographic entities through all United States government agencies. Now superceded by ANSI codes.
longitudinal data: Longitudinal data follows the same individuals for an extended period of time (e.g. months, years, or decades; typically a year or more).
microdata: Microdata is raw observations, (e.g. survey responses), and is thus data rather than statistics.
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes: North American Industry Classifrcation System (NAICS) codes are used by the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico to identify industries for statistical purposes.
observation: see sample.
panel data: see longitudinal data.
population: The population is the set all possible observations or samples.
statistics: Statistics are the results of a statistical analysis.
statistical analysis: Statistical analysis is the process or product of performing an analysis using techniques from the field of statistics.
survey: Surveys are methods of gathering data from a sample of the population.
sample: A sample is a small subset of the population.
unit of analysis: Unit of analysis is the type or level of phenomenon that the researcher is looking to study.
unit of observation: Unit of observation is the type or level of phenomenon about which the data was gathered.
universe: see population.

Software Tools

KNIME Analytics Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. GNU GPL.
The KNIME Analytics Platform incorporates hundreds of processing nodes for data I/O, preprocessing and cleansing, modeling, analysis and data mining as well as various interactive views, such as scatter plots, parallel coordinates and others. It integrates all of the analysis modules of the well known Weka data mining environment and additional plugins allow R-scripts to be run, offering access to a vast library of statistical routines.
URL: http://tech.knime.org/knime
Availability: Free.

SAS: Windows, Virtual Machine (for Linux and Mac OS X). Commercial.
SAS is a software suite that can mine, alter, manage and retrieve data from a variety of sources and perform statistical analysis on it. SAS provides a graphical point-and-click user interface for non-technical users and more advanced options through the SAS programming language.
URL: http://www.sas.com
Availability: Available on all Windows-based student computers. A basic version (University Edition) is available for free, but requires registration and a virtual machine, such as Virtual Box. USM students/staff/faculty may purchase discounted license through IT.

Minitab: Windows. Commercial.
Minitab features a complete set of statistical tools, including Descriptive Statistics, Hypothesis Tests, Confidence Intervals and Normality Tests. As well as advanced statistics tools, including regression and ANOVA. Minitab also allows for the discovery of the settings that optimize research processes using Factorial, Response Surface, Mixture and Taguchi experimental design methodologies.
URL: https://www.minitab.com/en-us/products/minitab/
Availability: Available on Windows-based student computers. USM students/staff/faculty may purchase discounted license through IT..