Using the Web for Research:
Statistical Web Sites

• Statistical Web Sites
• Examples of Statistical Web Sites
• Tools to Find Statistical Web Sites
• Issues to Consider
• Practice

Statistical Web Sites

Statistics are readily available from many Web sites, including academic, government, and organization Web sites. You can find a variety of statistics from these sources, such as data sets, summary data, and forecasting trends.

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Examples of Statistical Web Sites

• Gateways to Statistical Data
• • Statistical Resources on the Web
    http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
    From the University of Michigan's Document Center includes valuable links to both U.S. and international data.
  • U.S. Census Bureau
    http://www.census.gov
    Access to all of the statistical data that the U.S. Census Bureau makes available electronically.
• Data Sets
• • Data sets from the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder
    http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?
  • ICPSR Data Archive
    http://www.icpsr.umich.edu
    With access to the world's largest archive of computer-readable social science data.

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Tools to Find Statistical Web Sites

• Search Engines
  Most Web search engines can be used to find statistical Web sites. Some of the larger search tools are:
• • Google
    http://www.google.com
  • AltaVista
    http://www.altavista.com
  • AlltheWeb
    http://www.alltheweb.com
• Specialized Search Tools
• • FedStats
    http://www.fedstats.gov
    Gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies that allows searching across agency Web sites.
  • Statistics.com
    http://www.statistics.com
    A searchable directory of links to statistics sources grouped by subject.

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Issues to Consider

Pay particular attention to the following criteria when evaluating statisitcal Web sites:

• legitimacy of the sponsoring organization
• currency of the data
• currency of gateway site's links

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Practice

Try a search at FedStats (http://www.fedstats.gov) for statistics on distance education.

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