This guide is intended to introduce you to the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server interface by carrying out a simple and hopefully typical research task using the OECD Main Economic Indicators.

Visualise and download download unemployment figures in Great Britain from 1995 to December 2007.

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.

An 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 OECD 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_oecd to access the OECD Main Economic Indicators 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 OECD 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 OECD data you should see a list of OECD datasets.

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Expand the Main Economic Indicators folder to display three OECD MEI tables -By country, By subject and Single table format.

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Click on Main Economic Indicators (c) OECD > By Country tables and you will be taken to alphabetical country listings.

Select 'United Kingdom' and you will be taken to periodicity tables: annual, monthly and quarterly

Select Main Economic Indicators (c) OECD, Annual values and you will be taken directly to the series folder

At the top of the screen you will see three tabs:

• Reports: returns to list OECD datasets.
• Table: displays the tabular view of the selected data (current view).
• Chart: displays the diagrammatic view of the selected data.

Click on the 'Select Items to View' icon then choose 'Series'.

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 below the 'Series' dimension is highlighted and a list of the series items available for selection within that dimension are shown on the right hand side of the page. The dimensions in OECD Main Economic Indicators (c) OECD, Annual series: <month of release> table are as follows:

Columns: Date
Rows: Series
Others: None (there are only two dimensions in this table)

Use the 'i' icon to view further information about the dimension.

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Clear all of the currently selected series and then input ‘GBR registered unemployment’ into the search bar and click 'search'.

Three series should appear, select ''GBR unemployment level: registered (all persons) sa' by placing a tick next to the item.

Note: GBR is the country code for Great Britain. Country codes and other abbreviations used in the tables are detailed in the online OECD MEI dataset user guide.

Move onto next dimension 'Date' by clicking on that dimension name under the 'Columns' heading.

Use the 'Clear all' tool and 'Select Range' at the top of the screen by placing a tick in the appropriate tick box and shown below.

Click first the 1995 check box and then scroll down to select the 2007 check box - giving you a thirteen year range from 1995-2007.

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.

In the default view of the table which appears, the dimensions 'Year' and 'Series' are displayed with the year 1995 - 2007 across the top of the screen.

Rearrange the format of the table by dragging and dropping the dimension headings. To do this, hover your mouse over, for example, the 'Date' dimension heading until your cursor changes into a four pointed arrow. Left click to drag the dimension heading over the 'Series' dimension and drop.

This will result in the reformatting of the table so that the 'Series' is shown at the top of the screen and the 'Years' shown as rows. You can also change the dimension order by clicking the ‘Set dimension order’ tool on the toolbar. Use the arrows to change the dimension order.

Swap the dimensions back again back dragging and dropping the 'Series' dimension over the 'Date' dimension or using the 'Set Dimension Order' tool.

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

In the example screen shot below, the chart shows 'GBR Registered Unemployment seasonally adjusted' data in chart format.

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 view using the 'Table' tab to download the data to your computer. 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' icon and select your desired download format.

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

Congratulations you have successfully completed the OECD Main Economic Indicators tutorial - now you are ready to do some serious work with your downloaded data!

Please see the OECD Main Economic Indicators 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.

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

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