The Research Data Service, in collaboration with the UK Data Service, are running workshops on the theme ‘Assessing Data Quality and Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data’. These hands-on sessions introduce the key elements of data quality and disclosure risk, and include practical demonstrations of two tools to evaluate the quality (QAMyData) and disclosure risk (sdcMicro) of numeric research data.

Workshops will run across two days, with sessions on different days for researchers interested in social survey data (10^th June) and health data (11^th June).

Session 1: Assessing Data Quality in Numeric Data

This workshop will introduce the key elements of data quality assessment, including file checks, and undertaking data and metadata checks. Attendees will gain hands-on experience using QAMyData, a purpose-built configurable tool to quickly and automatically detect some of the most common problems in survey and other numeric data (SPSS, STATA, SAS & csv files).

Session 2: Assessing Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data

This workshop will provide an introduction to statistical disclosure control (SDC), covering: types of Identifiers; de-identification and anonymization; types of disclosure; SDC approaches; k-anonymity and l-diversity. The workshop introduces sdcMicro, a practical R package for measuring disclosure risk in numeric data. The session will give attendees hands-on experience using sdcMicro to assess disclosure risk and apply SDC methods to anonymize numeric data, while evaluating the balance between disclosure risk and data loss.

These sessions are available to research staff and students and can be booked using the links below:

Assessing Data Quality in Numeric Data (Social Survey Data) –                                      10th June 0930-1200, Lister Learning and Teaching Centre, Room 1.16 (Central Area)  https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34939

Assessing Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data (Social Survey Data) –                                10th June 1330-1700, Lister Learning and Teaching Centre, Room 1.16 (Central Area) https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34941

Assessing Data Quality in Numeric Data (Health Data) –                                                  11th June 0930-1230, Microlab 1, Chancellor’s Building (Little France) https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34940

Assessing Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data (Health Data) –                                            11th June 1300-1700, Microlab 1, Chancellor’s Building (Little France)                                 https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34942

Bob Sanders
Research Data Support
Library & University Collections

This is an edited re-blog of a newsletter from the Scotland-China Association.

Were your ancestors out in China? If so, track them with China Families:

https://www.chinafamilies.net

China Families is directed by Robert Bickers, Professor of History at the University of Bristol. The database platform allows you to search across 60,000 names of men and women who lived, worked or died in China, between the 1850s and 1940s. The information is drawn from ten different sources, and you can search each one of these individually, but you can also search across all of them. There are many Chinese names here, as well as the names of foreign residents.

In the century before 1950, tens of thousands of foreign nationals lived and worked in China. They could be found in large communities in major coastal cities like Shanghai or Tianjin, as well as in tiny countryside missionary compounds, or isolated Customs stations deep in China’s interior. Often thought to be exotic and obscure, these communities created newspapers, and directories, and their lives and activities were widely recorded. But finding out about ancestors who spent time in China can be difficult, for the records are scattered, and even old cemeteries were destroyed in the 1960s. Therefore, China Families helps uncover a hidden past.

Its companion site Historial Photographs of China makes available over 20,000 photographs of the period, many of them supplied by China families.

Margaret Morris dancers posing with tree

We are very pleased to announce that a new project archivist, Elaine MacGillivray, has agreed to take on responsibility for our collaborative Wellcome Research Resource-funded archives project ‘Body Language: movement, dance and physical education in Scotland, 1890-1990’.  Elaine currently manages another Wellcome Research Resource-funded ‘Evergreen: Patrick Geddes and the Environment in Equilibrium’.  With immediate effect, Elaine will split her time 50/50 between the two projects, which means that she will (usually) work Tues-Wed on our Body Language project and Thurs-Fri on the Evergreen Project.  This means that the Body Language project will now extend to July 2020.

The extended project period provides a wonderful opportunity to continue the cataloguing work, explore and highlight the collections further and to open up research opportunities using the collections.

Elaine’s predecessor, Clare Button, has successfully completed a significant amount of work on the project.  We are very grateful for the huge contribution that Clare made to the project and wish her all the very best in her new post as archivist at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, at Queen Mary University, London.

“Clare has undertaken a tremendous amount of work on the project to date and I very much hope that I can fulfil her ambitions for the project as I take her work forward.  I am also very excited to explore the commonalities between the two projects.  Firstly in terms of the ideas relating to movement, health, art and culture, but also in relation to the people found in the collections material.  I know Margaret Morris visited Patrick Geddes’ Château d’Assas, near Montpellier, at least once, and that they were both connected with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh.” Elaine MacGillivray, project archivist.

Watch this space for the next update!

On Wednesday 8^th May 2019, The Church of Scotland is hosting a conference, organised by the Theological Forum.  The conference, Westminster, Confessions and the Church, will run at New College, Edinburgh.  Speakers from Scotland and elsewhere will explore different aspects of the theology and status of the Westminster Confession.

The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines… (New College Library, Special Collections MH. 319)

Background

The Westminster Confession of Faith is one part of the Westminster Standards drawn up between 1643-1649 by the Westminster Assembly which consisted of over 100 participants from theological and parliamentary backgrounds, brought together to restructure the Church of England.  Several Scots attended the Assembly and the Church of Scotland adopted the Assembly’s recommendations, including the Westminster Confession which, together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, became the standards of doctrine for many Presbyterian churches around the world.

An Explication of the Article of the Confession of Faith (New College Library, Special Collections MSS WES 3.2) – temporarily unavailable for consultation due to conservation work.

From its inception, the Westminster Confession has attracted criticism, not least because, by its nature, it has to rely on man’s interpretation of the scripture and that will always be open to question.  Nevertheless, its longevity bears witness to the exceptional effort made by, and the effectiveness of, those who gathered in Westminster in the mid-17^th century to offer their very human advice regarding ‘a confession of faith: with the quotations and texts of scripture annexed’.

Confession of Faith 1690 with signatures (New College Library, Special Collections MSS WES 3.1)

From 1^st-31^st May, an exhibition related to this conference will run in New College Library.

If you are interested in seeing specific copies of related Special Collection items which are not included in the displays, please contact staff at the Helpdesk.

Bibliography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Assembly  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Confession_of_Faith

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Standards

An explication of the Article of the Confession of Faith of the Church of Scotland chapter 2 3 & 4th, namely that infidelity or difference in religion doth not make void the Magistrat’s just and legal authority &c. (New College Library, Special Collections MSS WES 3.2)

The Confession of Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of Commissioners from the Church of Scotland – approved by the General Assembly 1647, and ratified by the Parliament of Scotland 1690. With the formula for the subscription of ruling elders.  (New College Library, Special Collections MSS WES 3.1)

The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines, now by authority of Parliament Sitting at Westminster, concerning I. A Confession of Faith: II. A larger Chatechism. III. A shorter Chatechism.  Presented by them lately to both Houses of Parliament. Westminster Assembly (1643-1652) Edinburgh : Printed at London and reprinted at Edenbrough ; MDCXLVIII [1648.  (New College Library, Special Collections MH. 319)

Gina Headden, IS Helpdesk Assistant, New College Library