Study Guides: Data Science: Datasets

How to find datasets

Datasets are:

most often produced by government agencies or non-profit organizations
usually free to view/ download
located by identifying the agency or organization that focuses on a specific research area of interest

For example, if you are interested in learning about various Australian industries, IbisWorld would be a good place to look, or for data on population, the Australian Bureau of Statistics is a good source.

Using Google to find datasets

Google Dataset Search

Google Dataset Search looks for datasets in thousands of repositories across the web.

It is useful in searching for a broad spectrum of data, such as scientific data, government data, and data provided by news organizations.

Simply enter your search terms, and view the results.

Some datasets may be behind a paywall or require a fee for you to download them.

If so, search for the database's name in the UTS Library catalogue to see if we subscribe to it. Then, in the database, type the title of the dataset you found to view it in full. In the image above, we would search for the database 'Statista' in the Library catalogue.

In Google, to find open data on a country or state, search using the keywords: open data + the name of a country/ state.

Google Open Data search

Google Public Data Explorer

Freely available tool for searching public datasets. It makes large, public-interest datasets easy to explore, visualise, and communicate. Select Help for more information on how to use it.

Google Public Data Explorer search

A list of general datasets

Australian Bureau of Statistics Australia's #1 statistical agency collecting: social, health, economic and demographic research, and census data.
Awesome Public Datasets Contains a broad range of topic-centric public data sources. Most of the datasets listed below are free, however, some are not.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention Collects datasets on health topics arranged by subject.
Data.gov.au The central source of Australian open government data. It contains public data published by federal, state, and local government agencies.
DataCite Search Searches across datasets that have been given digital object identifiers (DOIs)
FAIRsharing.org A catalogue of databases for open data.
Figshare An all in one repository. A home for papers, FAIR data and non-traditional research outputs that is easy to use. Refine your search to datasets.
HuNI (Humanities Networked Infrastructure) Combines data from many Australian cultural websites into Australia's biggest humanities and creative arts database. HuNI data covers all disciplines.
Kaggle Datasets Has datasets on everything from bone x-rays to results from boxing bouts.
Open Access Directory - Data Repositories This is a list of repositories and databases for open data.
re3data.org – The Registry of Research Data Repositories Offering over 2000 different repositories of research data - you can browse by subject or search and filter results to find data archives and repositories that are most relevant to your topic.
Research Data Australia Find, access, and re-use data for research - from over one hundred Australian research organisations, government agencies, and cultural institutions.
Statista Contains graphs and tabular data, especially useful for technological data and usage statistics
UNdata Statistical time series for countries from around the world covering a wide range of topics. Some examples are Crime, Education, Employment, Health, Industry, Population, Tourism, as well as the Millennium Development Goals indicators.
World Bank Open Data Free and open access to global development data

Evaluating datasets

Steps to verify datasets

Apply the same evaluation tools to verifying datasets as you would scholarly information.

Who collected it?
- Examine the explanatory notes of the data
What are the credentials of the data producer?
- Are they an expert in the field?
Who sponsored the data collection?
When was the data collected?
- Are these the newest figures in the field?
Who was included in the data and who was excluded?
- Is the data biased or representative of all factions?
Do other sources provide similar findings?
- Find one/two other sources to support the findings

Data Science: Datasets