Nesstar: A Web-based Data Extraction and Analysis System

Richard Pinnell & Sandra Keys, University of Waterloo Libraries

Nesstar – Today’s Agenda

Introduction EDS (UW’s Electronic Data Service) Overview of Nesstar

Live Demo Actual Teaching Instances of Nesstar at UW

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Overview

EDS: Electronic Data Service http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/uweds/uweds.html

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Overview (cont’d)

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Overview (cont’d)

Our “Partners” TDR (Tri-University Data Resources)

University of Guelph, Wilfrid Laurier (and of course, UW!) Nesstar

SWORDC (SouthWestern Ontario Research Data Centre) Statistics Canada

OCUL (Ontario Council of University Libraries) Data in Ontario Group (DINO) ODESI (Ontario Data Documentation, Extraction Service and Infrastructure

Initiative)

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Overview (cont’d)

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Overview (cont’d)

Consortia Participation Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social

Research (ICPSR) DMTI Spatial Geoconsortium Etc.

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Overview (cont’d)

Other sources of data on campus Spatial Data Catalog (Faculty of Environmental Studies) Population Health Data Repository ...and we’d love to link to more!

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

Software: a web-based data extraction and analysis system

Over 700 datasets from Statistics Canada …as well as access to other data resources

Dun & Bradstreet International Monetary Fund World Health Organization

Grouped by subject Accessible from off-campus via Proxy Service

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

Raw data StatsCan surveys PUMFs (public use microdata files), synthetic files Need to be downloaded to use (statistical software

packages, Excel, etc.)

Low level/topical statistics Census profiles, Topic-based Tabulations Formats: B2020 files, Excel files

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is (not)

For high level/summary statistics, use the Statistics Canada website – free for the general public

(http://www.statcan.ca/menu-en.htm) E-STAT (access via EDS page) CANSIM @ CHASS (access via EDS page)

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

Documentation Abstracts Codebooks and Record Layouts Questionnaires Etc.

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

Metadata Marked up using DDI (Data Documentation Initiative)

Searching Simple Advanced

Searching specific fields Specifying retrieval at dataset or variable level

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

Subsetting and Downloading Download all or part of a dataset

Statistical Analysis Frequency distribution, weighting, cross-tabulation,

regression, etc. Graphic representations, display of descriptive stats

Exporting Data Various statistical packages (e.g., SPSS, SAS) Spreadsheet (e.g., Excel, .csv) Text file

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

Quirks Browser: compatible with any stable version of IE or

Netscape Pop-up blockers: downloading Password: what/where is it anyway? Searching: “stop” words, phrases, etc.

Help From Nesstar From Guelph (Viewlets – animated tutorials) Contact local data service (e.g., UW EDS)

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – What it is

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

YES!!!

No!!!

Nesstar – Live Demo

For those viewing this presentation after the conference, we have included screenshots of the main features of the demo at the end of this powerpoint

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar - Actual Teaching Uses

REC 672 Choose a dataset Familiarize themselves with dataset by going through the

documentation Use the dataset to test the various statistical analysis

topics discussed in class

Economics Research Papers Use data from surveys

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Questions??

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Thank You!

Richard Pinnell (rhpinnel@library.uwaterloo.ca) Sandra Keys (skeys@library.uwaterloo.ca) EDS Group (LibEDS@library.uwaterloo.ca)

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Nesstar – Live Demo Slides

WatITis | Life After 50 | December 4, 2007 | Nesstar

Library Homepagehttp://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/

Resources for Researchhttp://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/resources/

Connect from Home

UW Electronic Data Servicewww.lib.uwaterloo.ca/uweds/uweds.html

TriUniversity Data Resourceshttp://tdr.tug-libraries.on.ca/

Nesstar Splash Pagenesstar.tdr.uoguelph.ca/webview/index.jsp

Catalogue Resources

Metadata and Variables

Variable Descriptions

Searching for Variables 1

Searching for Variables 2

Variable Search Results

Data Download 1

Data Download 2

Nesstar Logon

Data Download 3

Data Subset

Data Subset: Cases 1

Data Subset: Cases 2

Data Subsetting: Variables

Data Subset: Download

Tabulation

Tabulation: Rows

Tabulation: Columns

Tabulation: Choose Categories 1

Tabulation: Choose Categories 2

Tabulation: Barchart

Subset Icon: Another Option

Nesstar Help: User Guidehttp://nesstar.tdr.uoguelph.ca/webview/hel

p/index.html

Nesstar Help: Viewlet Tutorials

Contact Ushttp://tdr.uoguelph.ca/mail.htm