Data Catalog Search Help

The data catalog window displays a list of all studies available in the catalog.

If activated on your site, it is possible to filter the catalog to only display the country/region and or topics you are interested in.

To filter by country or region:

Click on the bar labeled Countries in the Search dialog box to expand it.

• Select the countries you want to display in the catalog by clicking on the box\boxes next to your country\countries of interest. The filter is automatically applied as you click.
• To select all countries click on select all in the top right of the Countries dialog box.
• To clear your selection click on clear in the top right top right of the Countries dialog box.
• To switch your selection from those countries selected to those not selected click on toggle
• The number of studies available in the catalog for each country is shown in brackets next to the country name.

To filter by Topic:

Click on the bar labeled Topics in the Search dialog box to expand it.

• Select the topic\topics you want to display in the catalog by clicking on the box\boxes next to your topic\topics of interest. The filter is automatically applied as you click.
• To select all topics click on select all in the top right of the Topics dialog box.
• To clear your selection click on clear in the top right top right of the Topics dialog box.
• The number of studies available in the catalog for each Topic is shown in brackets next to the Topic category.

Note: You may combine both Country and Topic filters at the same time by expanding both Country and Topic select dialog boxes and making the relevant selections as described above.

• To filter your results by the year of the study, select the start and end years from the drop down boxes:
• To search for keywords in the study description and display the studies containing those keywords, fill in your keywords in the first text box. For example: Title, Primary Investigator,Funder, Series, Study Abbreviation, would be relevant in this field.
• To search for keywords in the study variable description and display the studies containing those keywords, fill in your keywords in the second text box. For example: gender, labor, health, age, house, employed, weight, height, expenditure, income etc.
• To limit this search in variable description to only the variable name, label, question or classification, tick one of the boxes below the second text box.
• Initiate the search by clicking on the button. To start a new search from the beginning click on the button.

Operator	Meaning
space	By default spaces between search terms indicate the word is optional. It implies OR
+	A leading plus sign stands for AND
-	A leading minus sign stands for NOT
( )	Parentheses (brackets) are put around sub-expressions to give them higher precedence in the search.
*	An asterisk is the truncation operator. Unlike the other operators, it is appended to the word (put at end), or fragment, not prepended (put at beginning).
""	Double quotes at the beginning and end of a phrase, matches only rows that contain the complete phrase, as it was typed.

Examples:

• Multiple keywords listed in a field separated by spaces will yield search results containing all studies that meet any of the typed criteria. A list of keywords will therefore be treated as an OR statement . For example: Listing gender age in the variable description will show all studies that have either gender or age in their variable description.
  
  
• Placing (prepending) a + sign to the beginning of a word treats the search as an AND statement. For example: Gender +Age +Employed will limit results to studies that contain all the elements, Gender and Age and Employed in them.
  
  
• Placing (prepending) a - sign to the beginning of a word treats the search as a NOT statement. For example: Gender +Age +Employed -Kenya will limit results to studies that contain all the elements Gender and Age and Employed, but exclude results for Kenya from the results.
  
  
• Placing quotation marks "" around a search term will force the term to be evaluated as one term. For example: to limit a search to study descriptions that contain the exact sequence of words health study in them one would type "Health Study" between quotation marks. Without the quotation marks the search would show all studies with health or study in them. With the quotation marks only studies with the exact wording in the sequence health study will be shown.
  
  
• Substituting letters in words or phrases with a wildcard asterisk * is allowed. For example searching for heat* would yield results for heating, heated, heater.
  
  
• The wildcard ? may also be used in searches to substitute for letters. For example: searching for employ? would yield results for employ or employed.
  
  

After running the search a list of studies will be displayed which contain the keywords you searched on. A count is given of the number of variables in the study which meet your search criteria . Clicking on this line will list all those variables.

Clicking on the icon will display more details about that variable in a new box. To generate a PDF of the results click on the icon or to print the results click on the icon.

To close this window click on the X in the top right hand corner of the box.

To compare or list the details of variables from your search results. Select the variables you want to compare and then click on Compare in the top right of your search results window.

A box will open displaying your comparison.

You may change the order of the variable descriptions by simply dragging the variable box to your desired location. Do this by holding the left mouse button down and dragging the content with your mouse at the same time. Printing the contents of the compare box as well as generating a PDF document is also possible. Click on the relevant text at the top of the box to print or generate a PDF.

Click on the field name to sort the catalog display by Title, Year or Country. The first click sorts the result in ascending order; on a second click the sort is performed in descending order. The up/down arrow indicates the direction of the sort.

These icons have the following meaning; please note that of the three types of icons available for data access, only one can be used for any given study:

	Displays the metadata from the DDI file
	Displays the data access policy (in html)
	Opens the form for requesting access to public use data files
	Opens the form for requesting access to licensed data files
	Opens the form to be filled for requesting access to data in the data enclave
	Displays the survey reports and analytical outputs
	Opens a database web site where results of the study are published
	Displays the survey questionnaire
	Displays document providing technical documentation of the survey
	Opens a survey web site (provides access to questionnaires, reports, and others)