Steps for Downloading ICPSR Data into SPSS Step 1: Go to the ICPSR website: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu. Click the Data Access & Analysis link located on the left side of the web page. From the Data Access & Analysis page, you can search for data several ways using a simple search engine available on the web site. For example, data can be queried by ICPSR study number, title, or subject-matter term.

Step 2: The screenshot below show results generated from a title search on the Data Access & Analysis page. “Capital punishment” was used as the key-word phrase for the title search. Once the data you need is identified, it can be downloaded. In this example, we will be downloading the Capital Punishment in the United States, 1973-2002 data. It is ICSPR study number 3958.

Step 3: On the Search Results page, click the “download” link located under the study title. ICPSR requires users to authenticate their identity. Therefore, you will be prompted to log on to the ICPSR site before beginning the download process. If you are not registered with ICPSR, you will be able to register at this point in the process. Simply enter your id and password to gain access to the data you want to download. Once authenticated, you will be directed to the Download page for the study of interest. In this case, it is study number 3958.

Step 4: In most cases, data analysis in SPSS requires the user to download three files. The files needed include 1) data documentation or codebook, 2) the data, and 3) a setup file. In some cases, the data are parsed into multiple files. When the data are presented in multiple files, each data file must be downloaded separately. Note: The procedures contained wherein are for studies with a single data file. Under the “Step 1: Select available data formats” column, choose “ASCII Data File + SPSS Setup Files”. Since only one data file is being accessed, the check-box for the study should already be checked. If it is not, check the box under the “Step 2: Select datasets” column. Once the file formats and data set are identified, click the “Add to Data Cart” button located under the column titled, “Step 3: Add to data cart”.

At this point, there should be 3 files (3.4MB) contained in your cart. The final step is to download the files from ICPSR to your computer.

Step 5: Download the files from ICPSR to your computer by clicking the “Download Data Cart” button located under the “Step 5: Download data cart” heading. Depending on your operating system, you might be prompted to open or save the files being downloaded. If you get the dialog box shown below or something similar to it, choose the Save option and save the file to your PC’s desktop.

When prompted where to save the file, make sure you save it to your desktop

Step 5: Files downloaded from ICPSR are zipped. Therefore, once the file is downloaded to your PC’s desktop, it must be unzipped. Again, there are several ways to unzip a file. Use whatever method you’re familiar with to extract the three files. When complete, you should have three files to be used with SPSS on your PC’s desktop. The files may also be in some sort of subfolder that is created during the unzipping process.

Step 6: Open, by double clicking, the setup file that is in SPSS syntax format (.sps). In this example, the file you want to open is named 03958-0001-SPSS_setup.sps. When it is double clicked, SPSS will be launched and the syntax will appear in a syntax window. It is important to note that if the setup file’s extension is not .sps this step will not work. Line 39 of the newly opened syntax file reads: DATA LIST FILE="file-specification" /

This line of code needs to be slightly modified, but the modification is relatively easy. Modify the code by REPLACING the word file-specification with the EXACT location and EXACT name of your SPSS data file. The location of the file needs to be the entire location path to the file. In this example, the file is located at: C:\Documents and Settings\thart\desktop\5265088

And the file name is: 03958-0001-Data.txt

Therefore, Line 39 of the SPSS syntax file must now read: DATA LIST FILE="C:\Documents and Settings\thart\desktop\5265088\03958-0001-Data.txt" /

Make certain that you do NOT remove the quotation marks ("") from the code. Finally, go to the end of the syntax file. Make a new line of code that reads: EXECUTE.

Once the code has been modified as described above, click the save button.

Step 7: Run the syntax file in order to import your data. This is done by clicking the Run dropdown menu from the syntax window. Choose the Run All option from the menu. If the modifications to the syntax file were made correctly, you data should now appear in the SPSS data window. Save the data file which will now be in SPSS format. In the future, you will simply need to open the SPSS data file instead of importing the data via the syntax window.

OVERVIEW

Step 1: Access the ICPSR website. Step 2: Search/identify the data you want. Step 3: Log on to ICPSR. Step 4: Put files in cart and download to desktop. Step 5: Unzip the files on the desktop. Step 6: Modify the SPSS syntax code. Step 6: Run the code and save the newly created SPSS data file.