American Time Use Survey: Data Access System

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的主要目标是创建一个在线系统，使研究人员能够轻松访问美国时间使用调查（ATUS）的数据和文档。ATUS是一项新的时间日记调查，由劳工统计局资助，由人口普查局实施。ATUS的受访者来自参加当前人口调查（CPS）的家庭。数据查阅系统将不仅包括ATUS数据，而且还包括ATUS住户参加的所有每月CPS访谈和CPS补充访谈的信息。项目完成后，数据查阅系统将涵盖2003年至2009年七年间收集的所有ATUS数据。ATUS的数据在工作和家庭、人力资本形成、社会政策变化分析、国民产出衡量等领域的研究方面具有巨大潜力。虽然有证据表明对这些新数据有相当大的研究兴趣，但需要大量的编程工作来编制适合于对ATUS进行简单分析的数据文件。对于每一个处理数据的研究人员来说，重复这种努力是非常低效的。此外，除非对ATUS的访问可以加强和简化，否则数据的复杂性将使研究人员不愿使用它们。我们提出的在线数据访问系统将允许研究人员定义数据提取的研究人群；在用户定义的活动聚合中创建时间度量，根据需要按一天、一周或一年的时间、按位置和指定的其他人的存在进行区分；并将ATUS数据与有关ATUS家庭的CPS数据结合起来。该系统将为研究人员提供全面和可理解的文档，包括浏览功能和随时访问问题文本、宇宙定义和变量描述。用户支持将通过在线电子邮件帮助热线、数据用户论坛和将在项目期间主办的两次用户会议提供。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The main goal of this project is to create an online system that gives researchers easy access to American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data and documentation. The ATUS is a new time diary survey funded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and fielded by the Census Bureau. ATUS respondents are drawn from households participating in the Current Population Survey (CPS). The data access system will encompass not only the ATUS data but also information from all of the monthly CPS interviews and CPS supplement interviews in which the ATUS households participated. At project completion, the data access system will cover all ATUS data collected during the seven-year period from 2003 through 2009. The ATUS data have enormous potential for research on topics including work and family, human capital formation, analyses of changes in social policy, and measurement of national output, among many others. Although there is evidence of considerable research interest in these new data, considerable programming effort is required to prepare data files that are suitable even for simple analyses of the ATUS. It would be enormously inefficient for every researcher who works with the data to duplicate this effort. Moreover, unless access to the ATUS can be enhanced and streamlined, the complexity of the data will discourage researchers from using them. The online data access system we propose will allow researchers to define study populations for data extracts; to create measures of time in user-defined activity aggregations, differentiated as desired by time of the day, week or year, by location and by the presence of specified others; and to combine ATUS data with CPS data pertaining to the ATUS household. The system will provide researchers with comprehensive and understandable documentation, including browsing functions and ready access to question texts, universe definitions and variable descriptions. User support will be provided through an online e-mail help line, a data users' forum, and two user conferences to be hosted during the project timeline.