00:00:07:27 - 00:00:38:16 Narrator Welcome to the Investigator Video series, a sequence of tutorials demonstrating how to access the data from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The Investigator is an online search and extraction site that enables you to review unless variables and create your own data sets. The investigator is designed to make finding variables quick and easy. Key features include three variable preference levels, allowing researchers to decide the level of detail needed for their project. 00:00:38:19 - 00:01:06:00 Narrator Convenient search options, such as the ability to search for information on a codebook page by simply typing in some or all of the letters and or numbers related to a desired topic. Graphical formats such as pie, bar, or line charts available on each codebook page. A Basic Download function that automatically includes the more popular options to speed up extractions, and an Advanced setting to select specific files. 00:01:06:02 - 00:01:32:22 Narrator Accessible codebook pages that can be viewed simply by moving the cursor over a reference number or question name. To access the NLS Investigator, navigate to NLSinfo.org and click the Access Data / Investigator tab or visit the link on screen. This tab will take you to the Access Data page, where there are several pieces of information to assist with your NLS search. 00:01:32:25 - 00:02:04:24 Narrator The first link will lead you to the Investigator Extraction tool. This video series will focus on accessing data from the seven NLS cohorts using this tool. The NLSY97 follows a sample of American youth born between 1980 and 1984. The 8,984 respondents were ages 12 through 17 when first interviewed in 1997. The NLSY79 follows a sample of American youth born between 1957 and 1964. 00:02:04:26 - 00:02:36:09 Narrator The cohort originally included 12,686 respondents, ages 14 through 22. When first interviewed in 1979. After two subsamples were dropped, 9,964 respondents remained in the eligible samples. The NLSY79 child and young adult follows the biological children of the women in the NLSY79. As of 2014, more than 10,000 children have been interviewed in at least one survey round. 00:02:36:10 - 00:03:03:16 Narrator To date, a total of 11,521 children have been identified as born to interviewed mothers of the NLSY79. The Older Men's cohort includes 5,020 men who were born in the years 1906 to 1921 and were ages 45 to 59 when first interviewed in 1966. Data is available through the 1990 survey year when the Older Men were last interviewed. 00:03:03:19 - 00:03:34:04 Narrator The Mature Women's cohort includes 5,083 women who were born in the years 1922 to 1937 and were ages 30 to 44 when first interviewed in 1967. Data from this cohort is available through 2003, when active surveying was discontinued. The Young Men's cohort includes 5,225 men who were born in the years 1941 to 1952, and were ages 14 to 24 when first interviewed in 1966. 00:03:34:07 - 00:04:05:16 Narrator Data is available through 1981, when active surveying was discontinued, and finally the Young Women's cohort includes 5,159 women who were born in the years 1941 to 1953 and were ages 14 to 24 when first interviewed in 1968. Data for this cohort is available through 2003. When active surveying was discontinued. The second link leads to a user guide with written instructions for using the Investigator. 00:04:05:19 - 00:04:29:25 Narrator This document steps the user through the variable search and custom dataset creation process. It also includes a glossary of commonly used terms in both Investigator and the NLS User Guide, along with the Investigator User Guide. The third link is a short tutorial on how to search for variables, a topic that will be covered more in depth throughout this video series. 00:04:29:27 - 00:04:54:21 Narrator The fourth link leads to large cohort sets. Most researchers only need a small data set of variables and can build that custom set using the Investigator. Very few may need to access the cohorts entire data set, and can download those files separately without using Investigator. It is highly recommended that you create a custom data set with Investigator before using one of the full cohort sets. 00:04:54:28 - 00:05:26:04 Narrator Each set has over 100,000 variables, with several thousand respondents in each cohort. This involves several hundred million data points, which can be taxing for your statistical software. Clicking a cohort link will begin the download process. The last link on the Access Data page refers to restricted use geocode data. Researchers who wish to access this information should visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to fill out a geocode application. 00:05:26:07 - 00:05:35:12 Narrator The next video in this series, Getting Started, will guide you through setting up an Investigator account and provide an overview of the Investigator interface.