Data Services

Our biannual web panel survey of 1,000 adult Pennsylvanians, the Lion Poll, provides affordable access to high-quality, statewide data. Learn more about the Lion Poll.

Our survey design and consultation services refine protocols to ensure high-quality data collection. We offer cognitive interviewing, a method of evaluating survey questions to diagnose language and processing challenges among survey respondents before fielding. This approach leads to more accurate and comprehensive data and helps you make evidence-based improvements to survey questions.

We design and implement customized surveys to collect data via web, mobile, or paper and distribute to surveying web panels, address-based mailings, or your existing networks. Our experienced team keeps up-to-date with the latest survey methods for design, tools, recruitment, accessibility, analysis, and more.

We assist with any or all tasks associated with planning and facilitating focus group discussions, at our facility (which includes a viewing room with one-way mirror and audio/video capabilities) or in the field. Focus groups are a useful qualitative research method for exploration and discovery of new topics, context and depth, and interpretation of a topic.

Our experienced and professionally-trained interviewers can conduct structured or semi-structured interviews, both in person or virtually. We assist with question development, recruiting, recording, transcription, and thematic analysis or more robust coding including the development of a full codebook. 

Our team can travel throughout Pennsylvania and beyond to collect data in the field to understand, observe, and interact with a variety of populations. Our methods include on-site intercepts, direct observation, and individual assessments.  

We provide training and technical assistance in accessing and using Census data for research, planning and decision making. We liaise with the Census Bureau and administrate the PaSDC Affiliate Program, host an annual data user conference, and regularly provide presentations on changes in data methodology and availability.

We help you navigate the many Census Bureau surveys and products to find the best source for your data needs. 

We do the work to provide you with usable datasets. Our experience accessing, understanding, and disseminating Pennsylvania data allows us to assist data users in developing indicator datasets to track progress and make informed decisions.

We provide demographic and economic data for the formulation, evaluation, and administration of public policy. The SCO is responsible for responding to requests from all branches of state government—executive, legislative and judicial—as well as Pennsylvania’s delegation to Congress and the media. SCO products include the Annual PA Facts Brochure, Map of the Month, and research briefs on timely topics. 

Geospatial analysis enables our teams to assess and analyze complex challenges through spatial exploration, modeling, and problem solving. Maps paired with data are a powerful combination.  Together, they help us visualize how data interacts with space—through things like the distances between places, land use (e.g., parks, industry, residential), and distribution of resources.

We’ll help you engage with the most up-to-date data available in an accessible and interactive way by analyzing and displaying key metrics. Select, filter, and drill down to explore your data on a deeper level.

We develop custom tools that provide you with a way to analyze complex operational impacts based on potential actions within a range of plausible contexts. Visually explore scenario-based outcomes of potential policy decisions.

We’ll create a data story—brief data visuals with insightful narratives packaged in a sharable format—to help you digest and learn from your data. Successful data stories support timely decision making by allowing the audience to quickly understand what the data means and the message the creator is communicating. They are particularly helpful to support data use among stakeholders at the state and local levels. 

Using cloud-based technology, we deploy custom applications to receive and integrate data from disparate sources in real-time. Our access to cloud-based data tools allows us to partner with you to tackle your data challenges and provide actionable insights and adaptable solutions.

Utilizing data science, we work with you to create strong schemas to support robust access and use of data that works for your organization. We provide secure data management—in a cloud-based environment or using Penn State secure servers—and intentionally partner with you to develop custom data solutions that leverage API integration.

We collaborate with you to consistently and effectively monitor the quality and completeness of your data. Our secure portals and methods transform your raw data into the most accessible structure and format needed for reporting and analysis, and we’ll routinely audit to ensure that your data is secure, up-to-date, and accurate. Additional insight can be added to your data through processes like geocoding that adds a spatial dimension, aggregate measures that can summarize data across different geographic and temporal levels, or composite measures that can unite data across different variables to represent complex ideas.