Research and Course Guides: Stat 220 Research Guide: Getting Started

Welcome

Use this guide to find some resources for finding and using statistical datasets for STAT 220 projects.

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, you will need to click "University Login" in the upper right corner.
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

SimplyAnalytics This link opens in a new window
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Use SimplyAnalytics to create datasets using thousands of demographic, business, and marketing data variables for the U.S. Create extracts by city, county, or zip code to make a larger dataset. Create a free personal account to save your work. Limited to 5 simultaneous users.
Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista contains frequently sought statistics and studies gathered by government sources, scientific publications, market researchers, non-profits, trade organizations, etc. Indicator stats are usually displayed as a chart and the underlying data is downloadable in Excel; charts can be downloaded in multiple formats or embedded in web pages and can be great in papers or presentations. Search results also display dossiers (topical collections of statistics), infographics, country/industry/company reports, market reports, and a global consumer survey. Results also available in French, German, and Spanish.

General Social Survey
The GSS contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest. Create an extract, and then select a delimited or Excel format to download the data, and use an unzipping utility to open the zipped file. Spreadsheets will include the data, labels, and codes for your download.
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.

Cross National Time Series (CNTS) Data Archive This link opens in a new window
CNTS contains annual time series data on 196 political, economic, and business variables from 1815 to the present for over 200 countries. Also includes domestic conflict event data on terrorism and guerrilla warfare, assassinations, revolutions, etc., with links to web articles describing the events. Download the entire dataset in Excel, with separate files for the event links and data documentation.
CNTSDATA.xlsx is the main dataset file. The Events Data LINKS files are separate by year. Be sure to consult the User Manual and the Codebook for data definitions and usage tips.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research This link opens in a new window
ICPSR is the world's largest archive of social science data sets; includes data for criminal justice, demography, economics, education, foreign policy, gerontology, history, law, political science, public health, and sociology. Also hosts extensive learning modules on statistical analysis for use in courses. Register for a (free, required) MyData account using your St. Thomas email address (and independent password) to download data sets.
To create a MyData account:
Hit the Log In button at upper right, then follow the New User>Create Account instructions. When prompted, we encourage you to select the option to allow your campus Official Representative (OR) to view your name and email address--this can help us assist you with troubleshooting and in analyzing our usage.

Email Account Validation:
Typically, ICPSR will automatically recognize your institution and validate your account. If you're trying to download data and receive an unexpected alert that you're not from a member institution, even though you are, your account may need to be validated. We can update this manually.
To request a validation, send an email to icpsr-help@umich.edu. Include your name, your institutional email address, and the name of your institution.

Google Dataset Search
Find datasets stored across thousands of repositories on the Web.
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.
Kaggle Datasets
Open dataset repository.
Minitab Support: Data Set Library
Minitab provides numerous sample data sets taken from real-life scenarios across many different industries and fields of study.
Data is Plural
Weekly newsletter and a Google Sheets archive of datasets.
Our World in Data
A site designed to collect and present data on societal issues from authoritative sources in understandable terms.
Awesome Public Datasets
A topic-centric list of high-quality open datasets in public domains, maintained on GitHub.
Univ of Florida Statistics: Miscellaneous Datasets
Appears to be a cache of practice datasets linked from the home page of Professor Larry Winner of the U of FL Department of Statistics. Each contains a .dat file and a very brief plain text description file.

Academic Services Librarian

Jim Kelly

He/him/his

Email Me

Contact:

O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library | LIB 115

651-962-5012

Subjects: Accounting, Business, Business Analytics, Computer & Information Sciences, Data & Statistics, Economics, Engineering, Finance, Operations & Supply Chain Mgmt

Questions to Ask in Your Search for Data & Statistics

Data Considerations worksheet

There are many things to consider as you seek data or statistical information: frequency, geography, topical area, etc. Download the linked worksheet for some guidance.

More Statistical Resources

See our Datasets & Statistics Guide for many more data sources.

Datasets & Statistics Guide

Stat 220 Research Guide: Getting Started