social science sites of the week

This week Italian elections.

The Italian political science association provides free access to its English language journal
Political science
This includes articles on the use of the internet by Italian politicians.
See our recommended news links on the blog which cover the latest news and views of the elections.

Also in the news Eastleigh by-elections.
There is a separate posting with recommended research links for this too.
For further information on local elections in the uk see the Plymouth elections centre
The pages contain summary local election results from 1996 and turnouts from 1973. Fill results in the local elections handbook series.

Day without news
Grassroots campaign with UN support to highlight the growing numbers of journalists who have been killed and injured in armed conflict. The website has a blog with news.
Key resources on this topic. Include
INSI international news safety database which records deaths and injuries worldwide, archived information from 1990 onwards.
Committee to Protect Journalists which has an annual report on attacks made against journalists worldwide.
Reporters Without Borders has a press freedom index  which records censorship and ranks nations by the state of liberty. It includes a journalists safety section.

Find and rank US PhD and masters programmes.
free aces to the Education Index tool from PhDs.org .It uses publicly available numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and presents them clearly so that users can rate by results and retention. It covers  online universities plus some data / statistics on general trends in enrollment in specific subject areas.
Other resources for the Uk include:
Complete University Guide
Comprehensive site managed by Robinson Digital Publishing in collaboration with Mayfield University Consultants and the University of Sheffield. Takes potential students through the university application process, helping them decide what subject to study, what university to go to and how to apply. Site includes rankings/ league tables of UK universities. Strong coverage of undergraduate courses.
Hotcourses.com
Free access to a searchable database of over 1 million references. Covers evening classes, part-time, full-time and distance learning at all levels from vocational to postgraduate study. Entries include descriptions of individual courses and student reviews.International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL)
Provides free access to a directory of courses and websites covering UK distance learning courses as well as links to examples from overseas.
Unistats Official site maintained by UCAS. It enables you to search and compare information about universities and colleges in the UK, and the subjects they offer. It includes results from the National Student Survey which measures levels of student satisfaction.

UK Household Longitudinal Study launch new website
Official website of the uk household longitudinal study.
This started in 2009 and is collecting regular data on individual households who have agreed to take part. Topics covered include economics, daily life, social attitudes and participation in sport and cultural events. it is based at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex from where they have been running the British Household Panel Survey since 1991. The website provides free access to a collection of working papers which discuss the methodology. There are also new 10 minute podcasts  which explain the survey. Some findings can also be accessed free of charge on the website. Full data is linked to on the esrc website (requiring an institutional subscription)

The Future of Britain Project
Is a new market research project launched by omd.  It seeks to gauge the impact of austerity economics on lifestyles, shopping, technology and media consumption, as well as consumers’ expectations and attitudes towards life in Britain . updates will be posted on the blog. basic information on the purpose of the study currently accessible.

Also on the topic of social surveys New Question Bank in Beta.
New replace ment for the Question bank has been launched in beta version . It offers access to questions form major uk social surveys enabling users to quickly locate type of questions asked, questions asked by specific surveys and wording. The system now also include integration with the Government Statistical Service (GSS) harmonised concepts and questions standard. More than 13,000 variables are flagged as belonging to the GSS harmonised set, allowing the user to quickly see which questions belong to this quality-assured standard

Australian policy online collections.
Policy online is a great site for keeping up to date with the latest research reports and grey literature from Australia and new Zealand. It was launched in 2002 by the Swinburne Institute for Social Research.It has now added a thematic collections section where you can easily browse resources grouped by region and topic. Collections currently offered include: climate change, student well being and New Zealand governance.
Each section has links to papers, comment, audio video resources. Related resources. Include
Futurity  an excellent site for keeping up to date with the latest research from universities in North America. It contains regular postings and comment from a number of colleges in America and Canada, who are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU).and
Canadian Social Research
Maintained by G. Seguin, provides listings and links to the latest social policy research

WIPO’s Global Brand Database expands
Now includes the entire United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) collection. Other additions Algeria, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Morocco, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and the United States. Find information on WIPO’s own data collections of international trademarks registered under the Madrid System; as well as appellations of origin registered under the Lisbon System; and armorial bearings, flags and other state emblems as well as the names, abbreviations and emblems of intergovernmental organizations protected under Article 6ter of the Paris Convention.
There are a number of sites which have data on most popular brands:
 Interbrand top 100 global brands listing.
Millward brown brandz rankings.
Ranking the Brands is a good site to find out and compare many types of brand rankings.
For instance see how Starbucks ranked on various lists

Human Rights Web Archive
 Launched by Columbia University. The archive is a searchable and browsable collection of over 500 websites created by non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions, tribunals and individuals from countries throughout the world. The archive includes websites harvested from 2008 to the present, with new sites added regularly.
Useful supplement to
HURIDOCS a global network of organisations concerned with human which also has the hurisearch feature to quickly cross search several thousand human rights websites

Orientalist photography
 Interesting website created to showcase examples of orientalist photography over 300 late 19th century Images of middle east ottoman empire taken by colonial photographers. Browse the gallery. This includes a harem section of stereotypical exotioc images of young middle east and arab girls designed for a western audience. Check copyright with the site before use.
The Getty Research Institute has also been conducting research on this topic. See over 2,000 images from their collections plus some background details on the genre. Reinventing the veil from UNC-Chapel Hill also has some background articles.

Rutgers Center for women’s global  leadershop poster collection (enter “CWGL Poster Collection” in the search box.)  Access digital images of over 300 contemporary posters from womesn rights organisations worldwide.  Most 1980s onwards. Includes health,  womens rights conferences and protest. Remember to check the copyright information on the website.