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Each catalogue entry provides metadata (“information about information”) on the relevant source:

BRIN ID: Each source is given a unique identifying four-digit number when entered into the catalogue.

Type of Data: the title of the source where this is a document, or summary of the religious questions used in a social survey or opinion poll.

Faith Community: the religious group covered by the source, e.g. General (covering all groups and none), Church of England, or Islam. This is always given as a nominative proper noun (Church of England, Judaism) rather than in the genitive case (Anglican, Jewish).

The terms used consistently in the catalogue are as follows:

• General - the population in general, whether a follower of a faith tradition or not.

• Alternative - describes questions, subjects or groups relating to astrology, 'common religion', Druidry, magick, New Age spirituality, occultism, paganism, the paranormal, spiritualism, superstition, UFOlogy and Wicca.

• Atheism - covers atheism, irreligion, scepticism, secular humanism,  and secularity.

• Buddhism

• Christianity - the term is used to identify questions, subjects or groups relating to the Christian religion. Organisationally, this term encompasses Anglicanism, Baptist Churches, Methodism, New Churches, Orthodox Churches, Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Presbyterianism, and 'other Christian' churches. We also use it to describe groups which historically evolved from Protestant Christianity but which do not always espouse a credal tradition, or subscribe to the precept of God as a Trinity: Christadelphianism, the Jehovah's Witnesses (officially the Watchtower Society), the New Church (also known as Swedenborgianism), Quakerism (officially the Religious Society of Friends), Unitarianism, and the Latter Day Saint movement.

• Hinduism

• Islam

• Judaism

• Metaphysical Religion - encompasses Anthroposophy, Christian Science, Gnosticism, Pantheism, and Theosophy.

• New Religious Movements - encompassing Hare Krishna (also known as ISKCON), the Rastafari movement, School of Economic Science, Unification Church (also known as the Moonies), Scientology, and others.

• Sikhism

• Other World Religions - encompasses the Baha'i faith, Confucianism, Jainism, Shintoism and Zoroastrianism.

Where organisation-level data are available, both the name of the organisation as a proper noun and the higher-level faith grouping are given. Where a particular organisation reasonably falls into two higher-level groupings, it is described by both. While to some extent subjective, this method has been chosen to deal with the array of descriptors available for some faith traditions and sets of beliefs.

Date: this field provides information on the date covered by the source: the period of years covered by time series (historical) data, the specific date or range of dates on which survey fieldwork was conducted, or the year in which a yearbook or directory was published.

Geography: the area covered by the source.

Sample Size: The sample size is the total number of independent units, cases or instances (“observations”) on which we have information. The reliability of research based on samples depends on the size of the sample, and on how it was collected. The minimum sample size required is a technical area but there are some useful rules of thumb:

• a minimum of about 30 observations are needed to calculate the standard errors of sample statistics. Below that, it is difficult to be sure if sample statistics, such as the mean of the sample, are truly representative of the underlying population studied. As the sample size increases above that, the distribution of the sample will increasingly approximate the standard normal probability distribution. However, note that 30 is not a magic number, and furthermore, that with small sample sizes further analysis of data is unlikely to be possible.

• to study individuals’ survey responses in more detail, many researchers use 1,000 as a rule-of-thumb when judging adequate sample size. Gallup, for example, uses 1,000 per country for its cross-national surveys.

• as long as the sample is representative, larger is better: we can be more precise about the characteristics of the underlying reality (population).If a researcher is happy to accept a 5% sampling error (‘limit for error’), wants to work with 95% confidence limits and the question has an expected finding of 50%, then a sample size of about 400 is acceptable. 1,000 is associated with a 3% sampling error, with the same expected finding and confidence limits. To reduce the limit for error to 1%, a sample size of about 9,600 would be needed.

The arts research organisation ADUK has written an explanatory guide available here, including the formula for calculating requisite minimum sample size. Anthony Wells’ UK Polling Report blog also discusses sample size here.

Population: the basic units of analysis or observation under question. This does not only mean individuals - other units comprising a population might include households, organisations, firms, administrative units, and text or media units (such as books, web pages, or words). Where the population is restricted to a particular group, such as adults above a certain age, people within a particular geographic area, members of a particular ethnic or religious group, information is given here.

Demographics: information is given here on demographic variables available within data compiled by faith communities.

Subject keywords: source contributors have assigned keywords to describe the scope of the data, any special characteristics of its contents, and major subject areas covered.

Collection method: this might include face-to-face interview, telephone interview, postal survey, self-completion questionnaire, educational or clinical measurements, observation, time diaries, e-mail survey, internet self-completion questionnaire, and content analysis.

Collection agency: The individual, people or organisation which collected the data if this is different from the sponsor. If names have changed over time, both historic and current names are given where known.

Sponsor: The individual or organisation commissioning and/or funding the data collection.

Published source: this category describes the authors, titles, place of publication and date of publication of any secondary sources drawing upon the primary source.

Survey instrument: a survey instrument is a formal, written set of instructions designed to measure a specific set of population characteristics through collection of information from a sample or the entirety of the population of interest. A questionnaire is a type of survey instrument. This category directs users to where published versions of questionnaires can be found.

Contact details: the postal and web addresses of government departments and faith community headquarters where known. Survey firms' web addresses are given in the Published source category.

Remarks: Where the dataset is available at the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) the serial number is given here. Information is given here of related studies - such as different waves of the same survey - together with their BRIN ID number. Information may also be provided on the sampling frame, or on which countries were covered by cross-national surveys. Provisos regarding data quality are also included here.

Source contributor: the name of the individual who created the catalogue entry for that source.