The OpenMetadata Survey Catalog is a web portal aggregating information on socio-economic, health, and other survey datasets from producers and archives around the globe. It enables performing complex searches across studies and variables and browsing through comprehensive documentation. Its primary objective is to enable the discovery of data by researchers and other interested users. It also aims to demonstrate the useful of metadata standards and related technologies through the aggregation of one of the largest collection of surveys under a single umbrella.
The catalog content is compiled from public metadata repositories using the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) specification, an internationally recognized standard for the documentation of survey microdata. It is updated on a regular basis through harvesting or exchange mechanisms. Note that while the metadata is publicly available, it does not imply that the underlying datasets are. Microdata is often sensitive in nature and access to the datasets often require permission from the custodian or original onwer. The catalog therefore does not directly provide access to such data. You will instead be redirected to the source agency where you will have the option to access the dataset in accordance to the local policies.
The Survey Catalog allows users to filter by country, repository, or keywords.
- Though the Catalog itself does not contain the data and metadata, users can search through variables provided by the source agency.
See the FrequentlyAsked Questions section for more information. We also encourage you to contact us if you have any question or suggestion on the catalog.
Acknowledgments
The Survey Catalog is made possible with the support of the International Household Survey Network through the ongoing development and maintenance of the National Data Archive (NADA) tool. We also thank contributing repositories and maintainers for their continuous efforts in compiling and publicly sharing survey metadata for the benefit of the user community.