SDA is a set of programs for the documentation and Web-based analysis of survey data.  There are also procedures for creating customized subsets of datasets. This set of programs is developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley.  CSM also develops the CASES software package.

Awards 

American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR):  2000 Innovators Award

American Political Science Association (APSA): 2000 Best Instructional Software Award

About SDA on the Web

SDA is a set of programs for Survey Documentation and Analysis.

Codebooks: SDA programs can produce codebooks either for printing or for browsing on the World Wide Web.  Some examples of HTML codebooks that can be produced are available in the SDA Archive. The documentation for each study contains a full description of each variable, indexes to the variables, and whatever study-level information is available. Additional studies will be added from time to time.

Analysis: You can also analyze the data from the studies documented here. Crosstabulation, the comparison of means, the comparison of correlations and other analysis programs are available online.  Data analysis programs in the package are designed to be run from a Web browser.  SDA provides analysis results very quickly -- within seconds -- even on large datasets with millions of cases.  Although many of our users assume we are using some sort of super computer to achieve these speeds, the secret lies solely in the method of storing the data and the design of the programs.  SDA runs just as fast -- or faster -- on today's typical Windows server.

Subsetting: Another procedure available in the Web archive allows users to generate and download a subset of many of the data files in the archive. In addition to generating the data file, the subset procedure produces a codebook for the subset and data definitions for SAS, SPSS, Stata and DDI (XML).

For information on how to set up your own SDA data archive see the relevant documentation.  For information on current SDA development efforts, see the projects page.  Also, for recent events check the news.