Welcome to DataFirst

DataFirst is a Survey Data Archive and training facility at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. The Archive’s holdings include the datasets from all major South African surveys, as well as survey data from other African countries. Researchers can access the data and supporting documentation from the DataFirst Resource Centre. Researchers further afield can download data documentation and public access datasets via the DataFirst data catalogue. The website provides access to bibliographies of literature using the survey data. These bibliographies include links to the full-text articles where these are available. DataFirst’s goals are:

List of Survey Datasets

The list of survey datasets allows an overview of the data holdings of DataFirst and provides links to supporting documentation in the form of questionnaires, metadata files and survey reports, which can be downloaded from this site. Bibliographies of publications based on the data can be accessed via this dataset list. The list will eventually be incorporated into the DataFirst Data Catalogue, which includes an online search function and data downloads.

Data Quality Project

The Data Quality Project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The aim of the Project is to deepen the capacity of South African researchers to conduct top-quality research using survey data that is placed in the public domain by the government statistics agency, Statistics South Africa.

Metadata and Data Downloads

The DataFirst Survey Data Catalogue enables online keyword searches of the data and information on the data files (Metadata). The data files and survey metadata are presented in a standardised format to support international comparability.

This link provides a facility to download the microdata files from the datasets in our holdings which have public access status. This refers to data from surveys conducted by the University of Cape Town, which has been placed in the public domain. Supporting documentation and metadata from these surveys can also be downloaded from here.

Our Resource Centre

Our Resource Centre is a facility to enable researchers at the University of Cape Town to undertake analysis of South African survey data, with support from trained staff. Survey data is available for analysis in the Resource Centre, with supporting documentation, including questionnaires and other metadata.

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