Research and Course Guides: OPMT 320: Decision Analysis: Getting Started

Welcome

Use this guide to find some resources for finding and using statistical datasets for OPMT 320.

Don't hesitate to contact me to discuss your data quest. We can connect in person, via telephone, email, or Zoom online meeting.

Sample Datasets

The resources here constitute test, sample, or practice data, or representative samples of live datasets that may be used in teaching and learning statistical analysis techniques. I recommend using these when the actual topic or question of your research is secondary to learning the techniques--if that is not the case, and the substance of the data matters, see our Datasets & Statistics guide or contact our Data Services Librarian.

CORGIS
CORGIS is The Collection of Really Great, Interesting, Situated Datasets, compiled by instructors at Virginia Tech.
R Datasets
A Github repository of datasets available through R packages (the download files will work in any statistical analysis tool). You can see the number of rows, the number of columns, and also how many columns are binary, character, numeric, etc. Includes download (.csv) and documentation links.
Dataset and Story Library (DASL)
Sample datasets organized by a by a Cornell University statistics professor.
Tableau Sample Datasets
Practice data collected by Tableau.
FiveThirtyEight Our Data page
An archive of the data and code behind many of the website's articles and graphics.
FuelEconomy.gov
Download fuel economy datasets by make, model, other variables.
Kaggle Datasets
Open dataset repository.
Kickstarter Project Data
Via our ICPSR membership. Create a free personal account using your St. Thomas email to download.
Market Values of College and University Endowments
Values of endowment funds at U.S. colleges and universities, with classifications. From the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). See also their Research page for related studies.
National Database of Childcare Prices
Sponsored by the Department of Labor Women's Bureau, the site contains a worksheet of county-level childcare price data from across the U.S. dating back to 2008, along with a Technical Guide (codebook) and associated research.
Office of the State Auditor: Municipal Liquor Store Operations Data
Annual data on the financial operations of city-owned liquor stores across Minnesota; this site includes raw data files and narrative reports. Includes both quantitative and categorical variables.
Sample Sales Data
This link is simply a Google search for "sample sales data by store", which will give you a number of possibilities
Tableau Public Sample Datasets
Tableau Public is a platform for sharing data visualizations made in their desktop software. Sample data for learning. Free personal account needed. If you have the desktop version you can download the underlying datasets from the visualizations.

Company & Industry Data

Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online provides in-depth information on publicly traded companies, including balance sheet/income statement data, ratios, industry benchmarks, and analyst reports). If you are asked for a username/password that means we've reached our maximum number of simultaneous users (8).
Use of the Mergent data and service are intended for non-commercial academic purposes only.
S&P Global NetAdvantage This link opens in a new window
An excellent source for company and industry research, including financial and ratio analysis. Contains the former Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys and Stock Reports (now produced by CFRA Equity Research). Also includes mutual fund/ETF and bond information, investment research reports, stock screening and charting tools.
RMA Statement Studies This link opens in a new window
RMA's e-Statement Studies provides Industry level financial ratio benchmarks that can be compared with company data; industries are classified by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code.
IBISWorld Industry Market Research This link opens in a new window
IBISWorld Industry Market Research Reports provide in-depth industry analysis for 700+ U.S. industries and hundreds of international industries.
MRI-Simmons Catalyst This link opens in a new window
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Demographics, psychographics, product usage, spending behavior, and media habits of U.S. adult consumers, based on national consumer surveys. Use it to create your own custom reports. Available only to current UST students, faculty, and staff. Limited to 50 simultaneous users.
eCommerceDB This link opens in a new window
eCommerceDB provides data on online marketing and sales channels across the global economy; includes data for individual online stores, market segments by country, brand and trend reports, etc. for thousands stores in 50 countries. Affiliated with Statista, some reports will open on that platform (ignore notations about cost and just click, it should recognize our subscription and get you to the content). Once you pass the St. Thomas login, hit the three lines "hamburger" menu at upper right and click on "Login"; that will clear your computer to use the database.
If you do get to a page that will not open the content without payment, copy the page URL and send explanation with content title to jpheintz@stthomas.edu or use our Ask a Librarian services.
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
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PrivCo database is UST Library’s premier source for finding information on privately-held companies. Company profiles include an overview of the firm, its leadership team/owners, and company financials. The profiles also contain, when available, detailed information on VC and private equity funding, private M&A deals, patent and copyright litigation, and IPO activities. Register for a free personal account or use the Direct Access button.

Datasets

Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista is a database of frequently sought statistics and studies gathered by government sources, scientific publications, market researchers, non-profits, trade organizations, etc. Individual statistics are usually displayed as a graph and the underlying data is downloadable in Excel. Charts can be downloaded in various formats and can be great in papers or presentations. Search results also display dossiers (topical collections of statistics), infographics, country, industry, and some company reports.
SimplyAnalytics This link opens in a new window
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Use SimplyAnalytics (formerly SimplyMap) to create thematic maps, datasets, and reports using thousands of demographic, business, and marketing data variables for the U.S. Use it when you need demographic and marketing data for a specific geographic area in the U.S. such as a city, county, census tract, or ZIP code. Create a free personal account with your UST email to save your work (check your email spam if you don't receive an activation email) or sign in as a guest. Limited to 5 simultaneous users.

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
FRED is a database of more than 55,000 economic time series maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Covers banking, business/fiscal, consumer prices, employment, population, exchange rates, gross domestic product (GDP), interest rates, money supply, producer price indexes (PPI), U.S. trade and international transactions, and U.S. financial data. Compiled by the Federal Reserve and collected from federal economic agencies.

Statistical Abstract of the United States This link opens in a new window
This resource is the first place to go when trying to locate statistical information.
It provides tables with statistics in many different areas, and includes links to
original source data to help locate related data. Earlier editions are also available.
Covers 1970-present.

Data.gov Data Catalog (.csv format)
A U.S. federal government cross-agency repository of open data sets. This link is filtered to comma-separated-value (.csv) formatted data. | Filtered to Excel format (.xlsx). You can also go to the main page of the site and browse/search topically.
IPUMS: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series
Census and survey microdata from U.S. and international sources, integrated across time and space. Covers demographic, economic, social, health, and education issues. University of Minnesota.
Sports-Reference.com
"A group of sites providing both basic and sabermetric statistics and resources for sports fans everywhere. Our aim is to be the easiest-to-use, fastest, most complete sources for sports statistics anywhere."
Awesome Public Datasets
A topic-centric list of high-quality open datasets in public domains, maintained on GitHub.