00:00:07:08 - 00:00:33:21 Narrator Welcome to the Getting Started tutorial in the NLS investigator video series. This video will show you how to set up an investigator account, or use a guest account, and give you a tour of the investigator interface. When visiting the investigator homepage, researchers will be able to access datasets as a registered user or as a guest. The login is the default page when navigating to the investigator website. 00:00:33:24 - 00:00:55:15 Narrator Maintenance notices will be posted here with dates and times that service may be interrupted if an issue should arise while working with the investigator. Additional help is provided by NLS User Services email usersvc@chrr.osu.edu 00:00:55:18 - 00:01:21:00 Narrator Another resource users have access to is the Help link, which leads to the Investigator User Guide. This is a text reference for using the investigator, including a Glossary of Terms. Users who prefer not to register may access NLS datasets through the Search feature. This will lead you directly into Investigator, but will not save any of your custom data extracts or tagsets for later use. 00:01:21:07 - 00:01:45:05 Narrator For individuals who intend to save or upload texts to our server, or would like to save data extracts that can be reviewed at a later date. We recommend registering for an account. Registration is simple and requires only an email and password to set up the account. The user will be the same as the email you provide after the registration form has been completed. 00:01:45:06 - 00:02:19:04 Narrator Users will receive an email verification notice from NLS User Services to complete account creation. Once your email is verified, you will be able to access the Investigator via the login panel using your email for the username and your password. When logged into a user account, there will be 2 additional links in the menu, Downloads and Account. The Downloads page will list extractions that were created and downloaded from previous sessions, making it easy to return later to retrieve data. 00:02:19:07 - 00:02:44:26 Narrator The Account page is where users can change their password, name, organization, and preferred file format. Whether you're logged into an account or accessing the site as a guest, your first prompt is to select a study. You will see that the four original cohorts have been grouped together into two main selections. However, once the selection is made, a sub-study option will be available. 00:02:44:28 - 00:03:20:22 Narrator For the rest of this video, we will be using the NLSY97 cohort. Once the study is selected, several tabs will appear along with links to additional resources. These resources include Errata, which provides additional information about corrections to the dataset for the selected study. The next resource is Documentation, in our example NLSY97, where you can find an introduction to the sample, the corresponding asterisk tables and other references to help you understand the data. 00:03:20:25 - 00:03:52:07 Narrator The third resource is Custom Weights listed by year. Each weight set provided is customized for its particular survey round only. Thus, researchers using multiple survey rounds should create a custom weight set that will provide an accurate adjustment for all survey years utilized in your project. For more information on this topic, visit our Custom Weighting Program documentation. Below, the additional resources is the main search area, which consists of five main tabs and a link to begin a new search. 00:03:52:10 - 00:04:17:03 Narrator Starting a new search will prompt the user about any unsaved data. The first main tab is Choose Tagsets and is the default tab users will see when beginning a search. This area displays required and recommended tagsets that will be listed in the selected variables. Recommended variables can be removed by unchecking the checkbox below the required and recommended variables. 00:04:17:03 - 00:04:43:12 Narrator Users may upload tags saved to their PC from previous sessions. It is also the place where registered users who are logged into their accounts will see a list of tagsets they have saved on our server. The Variable Search tab is where researchers will look up their topic variables. There are three sub-tabs. The first sub-tab is Browse Index, which contains the most commonly used variables for the selected cohort. 00:04:43:14 - 00:05:12:12 Narrator To the right of the index are options for selecting which information is shown in the search results. Users may check or uncheck options to affect the search results table. The second sub-tab allows the user to browse both the index and use the search drop-down menu to target their topic at the same time. If an index area is selected, a line called 'selected index' is automatically added to the search criteria. 00:05:12:14 - 00:05:36:14 Narrator The last sub-tab is the search menu alone. The search criteria has several options such as searching by area of interest, reference number, survey year, and many others. For this example, we will use the area of interest. Users may also choose 'equals' or 'doesn't equal' to include or exclude items in the search, with the first two drop-down menu set, 00:05:36:15 - 00:06:04:28 Narrator the user may choose a specific area of interest from the third drop-down menu, such as 'attitudes'. Note the type of criteria chosen in the first drop-down menu will affect what users see in the third drop-down menu furthest to the right. Once the selection is made, there will be a variables number listed next to the display button. At this point, you may add the variable to the criteria and continue to load more variables, or simply choose to display the created criterion. 00:06:05:01 - 00:06:32:24 Narrator Using the Variable Search will be covered in more detail in the next video with additional sample searches. The Review Selected Variables tab displays the required and recommended tagsets by default. Selected variables from a variable search will be listed here as well. By default, the tab displays the list of tagged variables with RNUM, question name, variable title, and survey year. 00:06:32:26 - 00:06:58:26 Narrator Through the option menu, you can show or hide different variable characteristics to be displayed in the list, such as adding a column with a valid number of responses. To remove a variable from the list, simply uncheck the box next to the variables RNUM, then click the Refresh List button to view the updated tagset. Note: Investigator limits extracts to a maximum of 15,000 variables. 00:06:58:26 - 00:07:28:06 Narrator If your research calls for more than 15,000, you will need to break the tagsets into smaller tagsets. The Codebook tab provides detailed information on each variable, including frequency of responses, range of values, and any special notes about the variable. The default codebook view is the required variable, in this example, the public identification number. The codebook lists several pieces of information for each variable. 00:07:28:08 - 00:08:20:22 Narrator Reference number or RNUM, question name or Qname, survey year, variable title, question text and variable description, frequency distribution, universe information, Previous and next questions. Links to previous and next questions, checkbox to tag and tag the variable, navigation through the tagset, and frequency distribution graphs such as pie charts, bar charts, and line charts. Each of the charts has a blue arrow in the upper right corner to pop it out as a separate movable window. 00:08:20:25 - 00:08:45:22 Narrator One additional note about the codebook: The items in the right column are only available in the Codebook tab, and not in codebook previews when accessing codebook details from within the Variable Search. The Save Download tab enables you to save a tagset, download a tagset for further analysis, and create frequency tables. The Save Download tab contains multiple sub-tabs. 00:08:45:27 - 00:09:15:08 Narrator Save Tagset, Basic Download, Advanced Download, and Manage Downloads. The Save Tagset sub-tab allows you to save a tagset of selected variables to be later downloaded. First, choose between the 'save to PC' or 'save on our server' option. Note that you must be a registered user to save a tagset on our server. Tagsets on the server with no activity may be deleted after 90 days. 00:09:15:10 - 00:09:36:27 Narrator Next, choose a tagset type to format the tagset file. The options include 'by RNUM' or 'by Qname with year'. Finally, define the name of your tagset in the filename textbox and click the save button to save the tagset to our server, if you're a registered user, or to download the tagset to your PC. 00:09:37:00 - 00:10:01:25 Narrator Saved tagsets are simple text files with a list of the variables you selected. You can save, add, delete, or change variables in your tagset as you are searching for topics of interest. When you are ready to download the data, Investigator uses your tagset to create the dataset and accompanying documentation. Because the tagset file is a text file, you can open it in any text editor and make changes if desired. 00:10:01:27 - 00:10:30:01 Narrator This is a convenient way to combine two or more different tagsets. The Basic Download sub-tab displays the types of files that would result from a basic download. Users can name all of the generated files by entering a name into the filename textbox, and clicking the download button to begin the download process. The zip folder generated for the basic download will contain the files listed to the right. 00:10:30:03 - 00:10:54:15 Narrator Compared to the Basic Download, The Advanced Download sub-tab offers additional file types and the flexibility to choose the types of files to download. It provides two main functions: Create download of data and create frequency table. The 'create download of data' allows the user to select only the files they wish to download, instead of the full set created by the Basic Download. 00:10:54:18 - 00:11:22:28 Narrator Similar to the Basic Download, users can name the generated files by entering a name in the file name textbox and then clicking the download button to begin the download process. The 'create frequency table' selection allows users to enter one or more of the variables and or options to create a table indicating a variables frequency distribution, if only one variable is chosen, or a cross-tab of 2 or 3 variables. 00:11:23:01 - 00:11:48:07 Narrator The variables entered for row, column, and page can only be from the current tagset. When using either function, users can 'apply universe restrictions' to the datasets. For instance, if you want to limit the data to women, choose the sex variable RNUM and set it equal to 2. Before clicking the download button. For longer equations, there is an equation editor to assist you. 00:11:48:09 - 00:12:07:24 Narrator The Manage Download sub-tab displays current extract status and links to completed extracts for download. Inactive downloads may be deleted after 10 days for registered users logged into their accounts, a list of extracts should now appear on the downloads page. 00:12:07:26 - 00:12:19:18 Narrator The next video, Variable Search, will go in-depth about creating and customizing your search criterion, displaying search results, and provide additional tips while demonstrating some sample searches.