Arthur Lupia - Closing Remarks

Thanks Jon.  The National Science Foundation’s enthusiasm for the American National 
Election Studies is providing us with many new opportunities.  As Jon has described 
a substantial increase in resources from NSF allows us to expand the project in many 
new and exciting ways.  In addition to the methodological expansion reflected in the 
new kinds of data collection Jon described, we are also going to embark on important 
new intellectual and scientific expansions.  In my brief remarks I want to tell you 
about a few of the new exciting intellectual partnerships and scholarly relationships 
in which we are embarking.  The first new set of relationships I want to tell you 
about concerns the projects governing body, the ANES Board of Overseers.  We are 
proud today to introduce to you a new Board of Overseers, which was recently approved 
by the National Science Foundation.  It will be chaired by John Mark Hanson, who is 
the Dean of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.  The new board will 
consist of 19 members, the full roster can be found on our website.  This new Board 
of Overseers will bring world renowned professors from political science, psychology, 
sociology, economics and communication together to develop each of the ANES data 
collections.  In many respects this is the most diverse board that there has ever been, 
and it includes Vince Hutchings at the University of Michigan, Paul Sniderman at 
Stanford University and Karen Cook at Stanford University.  

The second set of partnerships I want to tell you about can be seen on our new internet 
presence.  We are proud today to unveil a new web address, electionstudies.org.  
Electionstudies.org is the new home page of the American National Election Studies.  
Over the next few months we will be revising and upgrading the website in many ways.  
We have a set of changes in motion that will help current users find the kinds of data 
and information they are seeking more effectively and efficiently.  Many of these ideas 
are the brainchild of our staff in Ann Arbor, and that will now continue in Palo Alto, 
and their a tremendous resource to our studies and I would like to take a moment  to 
thank them.  Thank you 

Other changes to this website will reflect a new outlet for our internet presence that 
expands beyond just the ANES.  Soon electionstudies.org will have links to and information 
about academic election studies in other parts of the world.  We will also provide 
information about the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project.  A project in which 
ANES, and fifty other national election studies coordinate, to provide high quality 
comparative data, about citizens and citizens' experiences with democracy.  In addition 
Jon and I will continue to be very aggressive in pursuing new and better relationships with 
other elections studies.  We think that we can use the ANES’s expertise to improve the 
effectiveness and efficiency of other studies, and we will be aggressive in attempting to 
use the experience of other scholars in election studies to improve the precision and 
effectiveness of the ANES.  Together we think we can improve the precision effectiveness 
of all of our studies.

The third set of relationships I want to tell you about, it tells a strategy for evolving 
telecommunication technologies to improve how we develop ANES data collections.  Late this 
fall we will unveil the American National Election Studies Online Commons.  The ANES Online 
Commons integrates open source development utilities into our project development procedure.  
To ensure that our decisions are well informed, creative, constructive, and scientifically 
sound, we will solicit proposals for study designs, question topics and question wordings 
from the user community.  We will also solicit community reactions for proposals we are 
considering as they develop.  Any social science faculty member or graduate student who 
registers with the site may participate.  You can post proposals, you can respond to other 
scholar's proposals, or offer amended proposals, and you can post anonymously if you wish.  
Every submission will get a response.  This is an exciting new opportunity for researchers 
and graduate students to be more involved in the development of ANES data collections and 
to debates about survey design more generally.  The Online Commons will increase the 
transparency of ANES decision making, and we believe will lead to improved survey questions 
and designs.  

The forth and final new relationship that I want to mention, is that between NSF, Stanford 
and Michigan.  Jon and I are fortunate to be based in two universities whose intellectual 
depth and excellence of scholarship throughout the social sciences are without parallel.  
Jon and I are constantly inspired by you; we look forward to continuing to learn from you, 
and we're just thrilled to be able to share this new opportunity with you.  

Thank you President Hennessy, thank you President Coleman, thank you Karen Cook, thank you 
James Jackson, thank you Stanford, thank you Michigan, and now let’s celebrate.