The archiving of social science data and its re-use for secondary research and other purposes has recently begun to feature on the research policy agenda in New Zealand. This presentation details the development and operation of the New Zealand Social Science Data Service (NZSSDS) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The NZSSDS was established in 2007 and was based on the model used by the Australian Social Science Data Archive (ASSDA), with the assistance of its staff.

The NZSSDS was originally intended to provide a space for the storage of data and metadata related to past surveys of note from the social sciences in New Zealand. However, recent developments have led to its now serving three functions. Firstly; the NZSSDS seeks to preserve, and make available to researchers, data sets and metadata, and currently does so for 50 surveys – all available for perusal and secondary analysis. Topics covered include political studies, health and the social sciences. Secondly; the NZSSDS holds a small (and slowly increasing) number of ‘Enhanced Publications’. These derive from work produced by academic staff at the Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences (COMPASS) at the University of Auckland, and entail publications, especially journal articles, ‘enriched’ with three types of information: research data (evidence of the research); extra materials to illustrate or clarify the results produced; and post-publication data such as commentaries and rankings. Thirdly; the NZSSDS holds a number of quantitative research methods teaching resources, including teaching data sets (subsets of larger data sets  designed to be used by students to learn analysis skills) and associated teaching workbooks (based on the use of SPSS), which are available for download. These are intended to help overcome the lack of quantitative methods skills amongst undergraduate and postgraduate students alike.