New user-friendly website for FSD

Dear reader, it is very much possible that you’re reading this after noticing that our website has been given a facelift or after reading an announcement about it.

The previous FSD website was launched over six years ago, and a lot has changed in the way people browse the web since. The former site was not very suitable for use on mobile, or even tablet, screens. Even though nothing was broken per se, the site wasn’t exactly optimised for the mobile visitor. Unlike now. We have designed our new site with accessibility in mind, and it scales responsively to different types of screens.

Of course, the website overhaul had other objectives as well. Not getting caught up in the old ways was one of them. In six years, our services have also changed a lot, and we want to bring them forward in a new way. The starting point of the redesign was that all our user groups should find the services or information they need quickly and effortlessly.

The appearance has also changed. Now everything is a bit bigger and more colourful. Our website is our most important customer service channel and our business card as well as a meeting point for data depositors and users.

Content grouping has changed

Navigating the site is now done mainly via a “mega menu” that replaces the traditional sitemap and is always accessible, regardless of which page the user is currently viewing. We hope that this will facilitate finding the relevant contents if the URLs of pages have changed. However, we primarily aim to redirect the user to the right address automatically.

Most of the content regarding datasets directly has been moved to the Aila Data Service. The new site will include instructions on searching and using research data, introductions of featured datasets and theme pages as well as links to the most recent datasets on Aila.

Everything is new under the hood

Improvements on the site are not only cosmetic. With our partner Redflow Inc., we have developed a modern content management system, based on Hugo, for generating static pages. The CMS will be used for maintaining the FSD website and publishing new content. We wanted a secure solution that we could fine-tune to meet our needs and to fit seamlessly in with our development environment.

In the future, our other services will also receive the new look. For now, many of the services offered by FSD, such as Aila, Data Management Guidelines and Research Methods Web Resource MOTV, will have the old interface. The Swedish version of the website will receive more content in the coming weeks.

A lot of work has been done for the new website, but we have surely missed something. Maybe we have forgotten to move some content to the new page. Perhaps the interface works illogically on some browsers. It might be that a link takes you to the wrong place or nowhere at all. We will be glad to receive any feedback regarding the new site (tuki.fsd at uta.fi)!

Tuomas J. Alaterä
IT Services Specialist
firstname.surname [at] uta.fi

This blog post is available also in Finnish:
Tietoarkistolle käyttäjä- ja mobiiliystävälliset uudet verkkosivut.

Tietoarkistolle käyttäjä- ja mobiiliystävälliset uudet verkkosivut

Hyvä lukija, on hyvin mahdollista, että luet tätä huomattuasi tiedotteestamme tai saapumalla sivuillemme, että Tietoarkiston verkkosivut ovat uudistuneet.

Edellisestä sivustouudistuksesta on kulunut reilut kuusi vuotta. Tänä aikana tavoissa, joilla verkkoa selataan, on tapahtunut suuria muutoksia. Aiemmat sivumme eivät soveltuneet kovin hyvin kännykän tai edes tabletin näytöllä luettavaksi. Vaikka mikään ei sinänsä ollut rikki, niitä ei oltu optimoitu mobiilikäyttäjää varten. Toisin on nyt. Uudet sivumme on suunniteltu saavutettaviksi sekä responsiivisiksi ja ne skaalautuvat erilaisille näytöille.

Uudistuksella on toki ollut muitakin tavoitteita. Yksi niistä on uudistuminen itsessään. Kuudessa vuodessa myös Tietoarkiston palveluissa on tapahtunut muutoksia, ja haluamme tuoda palveluitamme näkyviin uudella tavalla. Suunnittelussa on lähdetty siitä, että kaikki asiakasryhmät löytäisivät mahdollisimman helposti heitä koskevat palvelumme tai kiinnostavan informaation.

Myös visuaalinen tyyli on erilainen. Nyt kaikki tehdään hieman isommin ja hieman värikkäämmin. Verkkosivumme ovat keskeisin asiakaspalvelun kanavamme, datan arkistoijan ja jatkokäyttäjän kohtaamispaikka ja käyntikorttimme.

Sisältöjä ryhmitelty uusiksi

Navigointi tapahtuu pääasiassa "megamenun" kautta. Se korvaa perinteisen sivukartan ja on saatavilla aina, riippumatta siitä, missä kohtaa sivustoa tai yksittäistä sivua käyttäjä kulloinkin on. Tämän toivomme helpottavan sisällön löytämistä myös silloin kun sivujen osoitteet ovat muuttuneet. Ensi sijassa pyrimme ohjaamaan käyttäjän automaattisesti oikeaan osoitteeseen.

Uudistuksen myötä tutkimusaineistoja suoraan käsittelevä sisältö, kuten aineistoluettelo, on siirretty palveluportaali Ailan puolelle. Verkkosivuillamme sen sijaan julkaisemme aineistoesittelyjä, taustoitamme teemakokonaisuuksia ja linkitämme aineistoihin, joka ovat saatavilla Ailassa.

Konepellin alla kaikki on uutta

Muutos ei ole ainoastaan ulkoinen. Olemme kehittäneet yhteistyökumppanimme Redflow Inc:n kanssa modernin Hugo-pohjaisen staattisten sivujen generoimiseen soveltuvan sisällönhallintakokonaisuuden, jolla Tietoarkiston sivuja ylläpidetään ja julkaistaan. Halusimme tietoturvallisen ratkaisun, jota voimme säätää tarkasti omiin tarpeisiimme soveltuvaksi ja joka sopii saumattomasti tietotekniseen kehitysympäristöömme.

Jatkossa tulemme tuomaan uuden ulkoasun myös useisiin muihin palveluihimme. Toistaiseksi mm. palveluportaali Aila, Aineistonhallinnan käsikirja ja MOTV jatkavat vanhassa kuosissaan. Ruotsinkielisille sivuille sisältöjä tulee lisää lähiviikkoina.

Uudistusta varten on tehty paljon töitä, mutta varmasti jotain on jäänyt huomaamatta. Ehkä olemme unohtaneet siirtää joitain sisältöjä uusille sivuille. Kenties käyttöliittymässä on joillain selaimilla epäloogisuuksia. Mahdollisesti jokin linkki vie väärään sisältöön tai ei minnekään? Vastaanotamme mielellämme palautetta (tuki.fsd at uta.fi)!

Tuomas J. Alaterä
IT-palveluasiantuntija
etunimi.sukunimi [at] uta.fi

Tämä blogikirjoitus on luettavissa myös englanniksi:
New user-friendly website for FSD.

Data Service Portal Aila: accessibility and practicality for non-Finnish speakers

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) is one of the most important national resources for the collection and storing of social research data. Among the many services they offer, they aim to make research data available to everyone, free of charge. In order to be able to make data accessible not only to Finnish people, but also to international researchers or students involved in research projects, they provide datasets translated into English.

Their Data Service Portal is called Aila and is easily accessible for international users from the FSD English Website. It contains a list of more than 1,200 datasets, many of which are available in English that can be conveniently searched through by using the feature "Search". This allows users to find data suitable for their project easily, a process that would otherwise be extremely time-consuming and which could also be inconclusive. Access conditions apply to most datasets, some of which are only available for research purposes and others only for research, teaching and study purposes. A small percentage can only be used upon permission from the depositor or creator of the data.

As a placement student at the FSD, who is not familiar with the content of their digital archive, I was asked to assess how easy it is to find and access data in English through Aila. For this purpose, I first started by researching a specific dataset. By using "Data Search" finding the dataset was quick and simple. The results included not only the specific year of the survey I was looking for, but also all of the previous waves. This is useful when one is interested in carrying out a study that compares data over time.

Although the process seems to be very straight forward, one needs to be careful before downloading a dataset, as not all of them contain data that has been translated into English. In fact, the portal Aila includes study descriptions in English for all of the studies in the archive, but this does not imply that all of the data has been translated. To make sure that the data is in English one should double-click on the dataset to open the description page and check on the yellow box on the right-side that it contains related files in English (e.g. the codebook).

Still, even if related files are not currently available in English, users can request for the dataset to be translated, a service offered by the FSD free of charge. This is almost exclusively done for quantitative studies, as the amount of text contained in qualitative studies would require a much more demanding process. Only less than 15% of the datasets are qualitative, however. This means that a translation can be requested for the vast majority of the data.

Many users may also have a specific topic to research, but may still not know the specific name of a dataset available for them to use. With this idea in mind, and focusing on specific terminology from the final project for university that I am currently working on, I used the "Variable Search" tool. As the topic I was searching for was quite niche, I was very surprised to find out that Aila contains some feasible data. This clearly indicates that the archive is truly rich in content. "Variable Search" highlights the exact variables that contain the terms searched for, within all of the datasets available in the archive. This is a quick way to find datasets that have already been translated into English.

In conclusion, the Data Service Portal Aila is an extremely useful tool not only for Finnish people, but also for those looking for data in English. It is accessible to everyone, easy to use and does not require extremely complicated procedures to obtain data. Perhaps requesting the translation of a specific dataset would involve a longer process, however it is certainly undeniable that the FSD succeeds in its aim to make research data available and accessible to everyone.

Laura Chieri
Q-Step Student