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Secure Empirical Analysis Lab (SEAL)

Faculty of Social Sciences

SEAL Lab Datasets

The following is a brief outline of datasets available in the SEAL Lab.

Education Datasets:

  • OUAC (Ontario Universities Application Center) – This dataset contains data on university applicants, the universities they applied to and offers of acceptance. This is a restricted dataset and applications to use this data can be made through SEAL.
  • Parliamentary Data – Listings of candidates, elected members for federal elections from 1965 to 2014 (can be updated on request). All candidate information including political affiliation, qualifications, provincial experience, past election participation, election voters, etc. coded for every election every electoral riding. Dataset transformed into flat data based on postal FSA and year, reflecting who the FSA's current federal MP is, their tenure, experience, qualifications, party affiliations, and past election results.
  • Ontario Schools Data - Contains comprehensive listing of all Ontario schools, including their locations, enrolment numbers by grade, gender composition, board affiliation, school type and size, links to other school data. Core universal dataset of all schools in Ontario. Spans from 1990 to 2013
  • Ontario Facilities Data - Ontario school facilities with description room by room, sq. footage, capacity, portables, etc. Years: 2002-2013.
  • EQAO Data – Test scores for grades 3, 6, 9 and the Ontario Secondary School Literacy test. This is a restricted dataset.  Contact the SEAL Lab manager to discuss your needs.
  • Ontario Class Size - List of records of class enrollment by grade by school. Identifies class by number, not just grade, and can include split classes. Years: 2002 to 2009. Extendable upon request.

Charitable Giving and Charities datasets:

  • CRA T3010 Charity Information Returns - The T3010 is the information return that must be filed by all registered Canadian charities under the Income Tax act. Canadian charities are actually tax-exempt, but the CRA collects T3010 data and renders it publicly available so that governments, private donors, and the general public know what charities are doing and how charities are using their resources. The data covers 2003 to 2017 and is updated annually.  This data has been cleaned and many errors in the public dataset have been corrected.  You may view the metadata and download this data for free from our Dataverse site: https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/sp/?q=SEAL%20Lab
  • Foodbank Data (HFS) – This is an administrative dataset containing information on food bank clients including socioeconomic information. Geographically linked community socio-economic information is available.  This is a restricted dataset and applications to use this data can be made through SEAL.  Metadata will be posted on Dataverse in December 2019. 

Datasets that can be merged with other Datasets to Enhance the Original Dataset:

  • Statistics Canada PUMF, Census Profile Data, GSS (General Social Survey) and CCHS (Canadian Community Health Survey) – Public use data is available to all researchers and can be supplied to any research team. Statistics Canada data released through the Statistics Canada DLI program or other restricted subscription services are restricted to McMaster researchers. Arrangements can be made for researchers at other qualified Canadian Universities to use this data.  Specific needs should be discussed with the SEAL Lab Manager.
  • Postal Code Conversion File – Available to all McMaster researchers. Arrangements can be made for researchers at other qualified Canadian Universities to use PCCF.  We have a PCCF replacement file that was developed in the SEAL Lab that was generated without the use of PCCF and is applicable to 2018 only.  The SEAL version of the PCCF is available to any researcher.
  • US Census 5% Microdata for 1990, 2000 and 2010 plus the US ACS for 2010-14, 2011-15 and 2013-17 – The ACS is updated as it becomes available. The 5% microdata has been converted from the original text source to Stata format.  It is also available in SAS and CSV format.  The US Census data is only available to SEAL Lab clients.