Licensed Data Guide
Most of the resources in the BTAA Geoportal are free and open, but we also include an index of licensed databases commonly accessed by researchers affiliated with a BTAA university. The Licensed Data research guide explains how to interpret those records and access the data.
What does “Licensed Data” mean?
Section titled “What does “Licensed Data” mean?”Licensed data is data that is authorized for use by an individual university, or by multiple universities in the Big Ten Academic Alliance through a subscription. It is paid for by an institution for affiliates to use, unlike free public use data.
Licensed data records do not link directly to datasets you can download like our other public geoportal records do. Download is dependent on the database itself (see database descriptions below for common uses and data format availability).
How to identify licensed data:
Section titled “How to identify licensed data:”- Under Public/Restricted” on the left bar for filtering, licensed data resources are found by filtering for “Restricted” resources. Browse all licensed data in the portal here.
- Under the “Rights” heading on the item record itself, there may be more specific restrictions.
- If you see the lock icon beside the title, it is a Licensed Resource/Restricted
Type of access
Section titled “Type of access”Some licensed data providers have a free version or limited version of their product where a limited number of datasets are available freely, while other datasets may only be accessible if your institution has paid for a subscription. The geoportal will send you back to your own institution’s library catalog for logging in, as each institution is different. Click the name of your institution in the bottom right of the record to be taken to your institution’s catalog.
How to get to the data
Section titled “How to get to the data”If you come across a licensed data record in the geoportal, it is an indication that the data exists in that provider’s interface. Our records try to mimic the structure or broader headings of the provider the record comes from. Collections in the geoportal record will most likely be named the same as headings in the licensed data resource, so this is one way to search. Another way is by searching the name of the dataset in the provider’s search bar, if they have one.
For example with the following Elections dataset via PolicyMap:
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Search by provider category or data folder
Look down under “Related Items” and see if there is a “Collection”. The name of the Collection will likely be a heading on the site’s interface. For example, Elections: Presidential is in the Demographics collection. That means that this dataset will appear under a Demographics heading on the PolicyMap site.
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Type the name or keyword of the record into the interface’s search bar
Whatever word you see as the name of the dataset, search in the site interface itself to look for it. Typing “elections” into the PolicyMap site itself will find this dataset in the website and then you can download from there. Some interfaces, like Social Explorer, do not have a search bar.