Alice Harman
Research Mentor: John Kubale
Mentor Department: ICPSR, ISR
Author(s): Alice Harman, Isabella Kan
Session: Session 2 (10:00 AM – 10:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Poster 134
Abstract
The UROP Data Preservation Project at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) aims to improve the metadata and documentation of vulnerable data made publicly accessible through the ICPSR Data Rescue Project. At-risk data includes data with inaccessible/outdated files, data that has been altered or deleted, and data that may be considered politically sensitive. On January 31st, 2025, following some of the first executive orders of the second Trump administration, such as Executive Order 14168 (Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government) and Executive Order 14151 (Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing), government data began disappearing (Exec. Order No. 14168, 2025; EO 14151, 2025). Although many of the data sets were eventually reuploaded online, many returned altered, with certain variables such as gender and sexuality missing or adjusted (Freilich & Kesselheim, 2025). Currently, there are over 2,700 deposits on DataLumos.Through this project, I have located additional data and documentation, as well as improved and created metadata for over a third of these DataLumos entries. My poster will include descriptions of some of the data we have preserved in DataLumos, along with the time it took to preserve them, why government data may be at risk and why it is important to preserve, and protect, and make this data publicly available. Citations: “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.†The White House, The White House, 20 Jan. 2025, www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/. Freilich, Janet, and Aaron S Kesselheim. “Data Manipulation within the US Federal Government.†The Lancet, vol. 406, no. 10500, 1 July 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(25)01249-8. The White House. “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.†The White House, 20 Jan. 2025, www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/.
