Moreover, since moving the ongoing collection of the GTD to the University of Maryland in the Spring of 2012, START staff have made significant improvements to the methodology that is used to compile the database. This distinction is important because some media sources have since become unavailable, hampering efforts to collect a complete census of terrorist attacks between 19. While efforts have been made to assure the continuity of the data from 1970 to the present, users should keep in mind that the data collection was done as events occurred up to 1997, retrospectively between 19, and again concurrently with the events after 2008.

Supplemental data collection efforts are subject to the same GTD definitional criteria and inclusion practices as the primary data collection process. All primary and supplemental data collection efforts that comprise the GTD are listed in the GTD Codebook. The RDWTI and the WITS databases were never used as the only sources for an event’s inclusion in the GTD and neither of these databases were comprehensively incorporated into the GTD. On a very limited basis, the GTD may reference other databases or chronologies among the sources of information for individual cases. The GTD does not systematically include records from either RDWTI or WITS. These data collection efforts were conducted by RAND and NCTC independently of START’s GTD collection effort, with their own definitions, inclusion practices, and source requirements. The RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (RDWTI) and the Worldwide Incident Tracking System (WITS) compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) are two important data collection efforts that coincided with the collection of the GTD for several years.

Windows 2011 database program