Qian Liu needs information on borrowing, repayments, tax filings and other fine-grained data to conduct her research on the effectiveness of Canada\u2019s student loan system.<\/p>\n
The Associate Professor of Economics says Statistics Canada is a rich source of this essential data. But permission and clearance are required to access that level of sensitive information. Until recently, that meant working in a secured room at the designated Research Data Centre<\/a> (RDC) housed by McMaster University in Hamilton.<\/p>\n \u201cFor about six years, I needed to plan ahead for a whole day: drive there, find a parking spot and book and use a secured station, which was a real hassle,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Now, Brock researchers can access high-security data in the comfort of their own offices thanks to the efforts of Assistant Professor of Health Sciences Samantha Hajna (BSc \u201908, MSc \u201910), her colleagues and the Brock Library.<\/p>\n Hajna got the ball rolling more than two years ago when she heard about a new online platform called the Virtual Research Data Centre (vRDC)<\/a>, created by the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN)<\/a> and Statistics Canada to support 2,500 CRDCN researchers across Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m passionate about research and doing cutting-edge work,\u201d says Hajna. \u201cAs a Canadian university, it’s important that we can address Canadian questions and the access to the new Statistics Canada platform enables us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Hajna, who also had to access Canadian Health Measures Survey data in person at the Hamilton facility, spoke to colleagues and the Office of the Vice-President, Research about bringing the vRDC to Brock.<\/p>\n The Office of Research Services and Brock Library took steps to fulfil Hajna\u2019s request, and the University recently signed an agreement to become a Collaborating Institution with the CRDCN. This expanded membership includes access to the vRDC for Brock researchers.<\/p>\n While researchers, institutions and research projects still need to be approved by Statistics Canada, travel is no longer required for most projects. Eighty per cent of microdata currently provided by RDCs can now be accessed remotely.<\/p>\n Statistics Canada and the CRDCN define microdata<\/a> as observations at the level of households, businesses or individuals.<\/p>\n Research Data Librarian Sonia Dhaliwal says the Library has long been providing researchers with access to sensitive, non-public data through Statistics Canada\u2019s Data Liberation Initiative<\/a> and a range of licensed and open data sources that support research and teaching across the University. She says the agreement with the CRCDN lowers barriers to accessing this extensive resource,.<\/p>\n “The Library is excited about this improved access to the unique microdata available through Statistics Canada,\u201d says Dhaliwal. \u201cThis will be an invaluable resource for researchers across a wide range of disciplines, particularly in the social sciences, economics, business and health sciences.\u201d<\/p>\n Liu says she is also pleased with the new virtual access.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something I have been looking forward to since I joined Brock; it’s a dream coming true,\u201d she says. \u201cThis access levels the playing field, is going to attract new faculty and students and will answer a lot of interesting questions that cannot be answered by just using publicly accessible data.\u201d<\/p>\n