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 National Statistics Time Series Data.

Visualise and download the quarterly UK pound/Euro exchange rate figures from 1975 to 2004.

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 or pdf format.

For help, please contact the ESDS International team.

Stage i) Finding and selecting the data

Choose Time Series Data from the 'Direct Links to macro data' drop down list on the ESDS International website, or via the following url - http://esds.mcc.ac.uk/wds_natstats/ to access the NS Time Series 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 be 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 Time Series Data you should see a list of folders representing each of the 40 Time Series Data publications. Each of the folders contains three reports, one for each periodicity - annual, quarterly and monthly. For information about the contents and coverage of each of the NS Time Series Data publications please view the Time Series Data user guide.

At the top right of the screen you will see a search input box which can be used to search for keywords or series codes across all publications. Note: There is no need to use AND as Beyond 20/20 WDS performs an AND search if you input more than one keyword.

If you already know which publication you require, expand the corresponding folder to view the available reports.

Expand the Financial Statistics - Freestanding folder and select the report labeled [NS TSD <month and year] [Financial Statistics - Freestanding] [Quarterly values]

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In the table view which appears you will see three tabs at the top of the screen:

• Reports: returns to list of available NS Time Series Data reports.
• [NS TSD <month and year>] [Financial Statistics - Freestanding] [Quarterly values]: identifies the current report
• Help: Beyond 20/20 help

By default the table will be populated with data but this may not include the information you want. Use the Actions menu in the toolbar to narrow the data selection.

Click on Actions menu > Select Items to View > Year.

Click the Clear all icon to remove all default selected years.

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 'Year' dimension is highlighted and a list of the years available for selection within that dimension are shown on the right hand side of the page.

Click Select Range and tick boxes 1975 and 2004. This should select all years between these two dates.

Use Actions > Select Items to View to move onto the Series dimension.

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

Use the Clear all button to remove all current default selections and type 'exchange rates euro' into the search input box and click Search. Select the Series item labeled '[Exchange rates for euro monthly average - sterling euro] [Seasonality: Unadjusted] [NS Table / Series code: fsfreFSF /THAPQU]'.

To view further information on the series - for example the number of observations available, the Start date and End date, the last time the data was updated by National Statistics and the Seasonal type, use the summary notes icon next to the series title.

Return to report and use the Actions > Select Items to View option to move onto next dimension Quarter.

Four checkbox options are displayed, Q1-Q4 - leave all four selected.

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 'View as Table' tool at the top of the screen.

In the default view of the table which appears you may not be able to see all the data. However, the format of the table can be rearranged by dragging and dropping the dimension headings.

Re-arrange the format of the table by dragging and dropping the dimension headings. To do this, hover your mouse over, for example, the Year dimension heading until your cursor changes into a four pointed arrow. Left click and drag the heading to a new position just above the Quarter dimension and drop. Using the Actions menu, you can also Set Dimension Order as shown below.

The table should now appear as shown in the screen shot below with Year as Column and Series and Quarter as rows.

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

Click each chart to view the Euro exchange rates per year.

Use Actions menu to change chart type, chart size and to view a printable version of the chart.

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 View as table option 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 Actions menu > Download report data... and select your desired download format - either Beyond 20/20 table format, Microsoft Excel format, Comma-delimited ASCII format or Semicolon-delimited ASCII format. .

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

Congratulations you have successfully completed the NS Time Series Data tutorial - now you are ready to do some serious work with your downloaded data!

Please see the NS Time Series dataset user guide for further information on the contents of the database.

Tested on Netscape 7 and Internet Explorer 6
This is for Beyond 20/20 version 7.3

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

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