This guide is intended to introduce you to Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server by carrying out a simple and hopefully typical research task using the IMF's Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS).

Visualise and download figures showing the value of United States exports to Iraq over a fifteen year period from 1988 to 2003.

It is divided into three stages:

1. Finding and selecting the data
2. Visualising the data
3. Downloading the data

Approx. time to complete: 20 minutes.

A4 worksheet version of this task can be printed in pdf format.

For help, please contact the ESDS International team.

Stage i) Finding and selecting the data

Choose IMF DOTS data from the 'Direct Links to data' drop down list on the ESDS International website, or via the following url - http://esds.mcc.ac.uk/wds_dots/ to access the IMF DOTS data.

Input UK HE/FE institutional username and password in the login window. If you do not have a UK HE/FE institutional id, please visit the login help pages within the Access and Preservation section of ESDS.

If you have not already registered with the ESDS you will then be automatically redirected to complete an online registration after which you will need to agree to the IMF special conditions prior to being able to access the data using only your UK HE/FE institutional username and password.

On entering the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server site for the IMF DOTS data you should see a folder labeled Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS).

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Expand the Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) folder to display it's contents. You will see it contains folders labeled:

• DOTS Historical (1948 - 1980): contains historical DOTS pre 1980 data
• DOTS Current (1980 - ): contains current DOTS data from 1980 split only by Periodicity

Expand the DOTS Current (1980 - ) > and select 'DOTS Annual <month> <year>'.

By default the table that is displayed will be populated with all data but this will be more information than you want. Use the 'Select Items to View' icon on the toolbar to narrow the data selection.

Click on 'Select Items to View' > Reporter Country.

Use the Clear all tool to remove all default selected Countries.

Scroll down the list and select ‘United States’ by clicking on the tick box next to it.

Note: You can also search for the required item, i.e. United States by using the Search tool.

On the left hand side of the screen you will see the available dimensions under Columns, Rows and Other headings. The current dimension is highlighted, for example in the screen shot above the Reporter country dimension is highlighted and a list of the items available for selection within that dimension are shown on the right hand side of the page.

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Click the small blue icon on the 'Reporter Country' dimension to view summary notes.

Use 'Select Items to View' to move onto next dimension 'Partner Country'.

Select ‘Iraq’ by repeating the steps used for Reporter country.

Move onto next dimension 'Time' by clicking its name under the 'Columns' heading.

Use the 'Clear all' tool to remove all default selected years.

Tick 'Select Range' and click on 1988 tick box followed by 2003 tick box. This will select all years within the range specified, i.e. the fifteen year period from 1988 to 2003.

Note: You can also switch dimensions by clicking on the dimension name - both options are illustrated in the screen shot above.

Use 'Select Items to View' to move onto next dimension 'Flow'.

Use the 'Clear all' tool to remove all default selected Flows.

Click on 'Exports' tick box. This will select exports as the Flow specified.

Note: There is a new profile function in Beyond 20/20. Profiles enable you to save your selections from each dimension (for example, country or series) of the database. When you return to the database you can re-activate your previously saved profiles. Selections in each dimension are saved individually so you can save selections in as many or few dimensions are you want.

For example, say you wish to select data for a number of countries. Once you have selected your countries you can then save this selection as a named profile by clicking on the profile icon then choosing 'Save current selections as a profile' option: Beyond 20/20 will then remember the countries you have selected and store this selection as a named profile for you to use in future sessions. The procedure can be repeated for any other dimension of the database.

Each time you log on, Beyond 20/20 will recognize who you are and can retrieve your previously saved selections for that database. This means that the next time you wish to run the same query you can click on the profile icon then select 'Activate profile' to reopen your saved selections. The profiles will be saved until you choose to delete them.

You have now completed the Finding and Selecting data stage and can move on to visualising your data.

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Stage ii) Visualising the data

There are two ways of visualising data in Beyond 20/20 WDS - in chart or table format.

View the report in table format by using the 'Show Table' tool at the top of the screen.

Note: The format of the table can be rearranged by dragging and dropping the dimension headings to reposition, i.e. in the IMF DOTS report, the Years would become rows and the Flows would be displayed as columns. Similarly both the Reporter country and the Partner country can be dragged and dropped to become either columns or rows.

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View the report in chart format by using the 'Chart' tab at the top of the screen.

In the example screen shot below, the chart shows United States as the reporter country and plots the export figures to the partner country, i.e. Iraq.

Use the 'Chart Types' icon to change chart type and the 'View printable version' icon to print the chart.

To save the chart image, use Alt + Print Screen and paste into a paint program as right clicking to 'Save picture as' only saves the chart itself and not the chart key or heading.

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Stage iii) Downloading the data

Return to the Table tab to download the data to your pc. Manipulate the table into desired format using the dimension headers as the table layout and contents are downloaded exactly as they appear on screen.

Use the 'Download' tool and select your desired download format.

The rest of the process is the same as downloading any file from the web.

Once you have downloaded the data, you can see information on how to cite the data towards the top of the file.

Congratulations you have successfully completed the IMF DOTS tutorial - now you are ready to do some serious work with your downloaded data!

Please see the IMF DOTS dataset user guide for further information on the contents of the database.

If you would like to move to another database you can select the 'Quick links to macro data' drop down box at the top of the page then select the database you require.

Tested on Netscape 7 and Internet Explorer 7.

Note: All Beyond 20/20 images used on this page are Copyright © Beyond 20/20 Inc. All rights reserved.

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