Application of high-performance computing to the management of social science and demographic data

Abstract

The costs of conducting censuses and surveys have always been high. Nonetheless, demographic, social, environmental, and health scientists have found it possible to gather quantities of data that far exceed the capabilities of any contemporary computing technology to extract fully the information contained in the data. Recent developments in computing and information science technology offer the promise of supporting innovative approaches to managing and analyzing data that can dramatically increase the ease of access to the information hidden within these data. This presentation describes a highly integrated system of data, metadata, instructional tutorials, hardware, and software designed to minimize the technical barriers to working with large and complex data sets. The objective is to provide easy, low-cost, fast, and meaningful access to these data for a broad spectrum of users. Copyright 1997 Psychonomic Society, Inc.