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Data Management Policies and Services

The UnderStanding America Study's (UAS's) data management policies are supportive of the goal of reproducible scientific results. UAS is part of the Center for Economic and Social Research, which is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s Transparency Initiative. As such, UAS is committed to transparency in our methodology and providing secure access to our data collections. Researchers from all over the world conduct surveys in the Understanding America Study (UAS) probability-based internet research panel. UAS maintains a secure database of these survey results. Researchers interested in secondary data analysis of UAS’s collection of longitudinal or single-survey data, or in linking existing data to their survey results, may register for a UAS data user account. Learn more about levels of access to UAS data here.


Ethical Use of UAS Survey Data

To access UAS data, registered users have created a data access account and signed a data use agreement to respect participant privacy and confidentiality and to not attempt to re-identify UAS participants. Access to UAS data is granted to each user based on their individual signed Data Use Agreement. Data users are not authorized to share data files with, or provide copies of data files to, any other person, organization or generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT. Each member of a team sharing a data file must create their own account and submit a signed DUA.

Once registered, users are provided with access to UAS’s collection of coded individual-level survey data; occasionally after a brief embargo. These UAS data files contain no direct identifiers, including localities more granular than state. The data may be merged for analysis using the unique participant-level UAS code.


Publications, Data Hosting, and Replicability Support

Manuscripts and presentations of research based on UAS data should include an acknowledgement similar to the following: The project described in this paper relies on data from survey(s) administered by the Understanding America Study, which is maintained by the Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) at the University of Southern California. The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of USC or UAS.

Many journals now follow an open-data policy, encouraging or requiring authors to provide analysis data files along with published articles. In keeping with UAS’s open source philosophy of routine disclosure of research methods, data, and programs, we will host publication-related final analysis data sets for authors of publications based on UAS data.

We have provided some language here that may be used or modified to respond to journal inquiries : Quantitative data sets and any related materials will be posted on the Understanding America Study website upon publication. Consistent with open science practices, any individual is able to access these data for purpose of replication or research after free registration, and provision of a signed data use agreement.


Locating Publication-Related Data Files

You can access UAS-hosted analytic data files by either following the link(s) included with a published article from our publication page (located here), or if you know which UAS survey is associated with the publication, you can access the file directly from the survey’s data page.