Be aware that CNEF-Investigator operates in two modes – each of which requires a separate authorization. The first mode is CNEF-Investigator “Browse.” The second mode is CNEF-Investigator “Data Download.” The difference between the modes is in their name. In the first mode, you may browse the summary data of all countries but may NOT download any data. In the second mode, you may browse summary data of all countries AND you may download data – but only for countries that have authorized you to access their data. To access a specific country’s data, you must first apply for access.To do so, consult Partner Policies underneath the ‘Documentation’ tab.
Log onto Investigator using the Username and Password that you established when you signed up for an account.
You should have received an email with your username from cnef_account_request@chrr.osu.edu
After you login, you will see a screen as above. Click on the 'Select a Study' tab. Be sure to select the 'CNEF' option.
If you want to browse data for only one country, select a sub-study and the specific country whose data you want to browse.
If you want to compare data across two or more countries, select the 'All Countries' sub-study. The select the variables whose distributions you want to examine.
For this tutorial, we will choose 'All Countries.'
For people who have permission to download data, please note two important features. These are labeled as the 'Saved Tagsets' and 'Upload Tagsets' sections. These features allow you to specify variables you want to save. We will discuss how you save these towards the end of this tutorial.
To select variables to browse (or download), use the drop-down windows. That selection should be fairly self-explanatory. I will illustrate with an example. If I want to see the distribution of German respondents by the metropolitan area where they reside, I will selection variable L1110.
CNEF-Investigators allows users to generate cross-tabulations. To do so, select each conditioning variable one-by-one and add them to the search terms (use the Add button on the far right hand of the screen).
Note, as you do this, the number of variables which appear that fit this criterion of being from the German Study 'AND' question L1110 will show next to the Display Variables button. Further refinement of the searches can be done by changing the drop-down menu at the top of this image to 'OR' instead of 'AND'. If you mistakenly add a variable you did not want, you can remove that variable with the “Remove”.
In this example, assume we actually wanted to know the distribution of Australians across metropolitan areas of residence (not Germans). We simply substitute Australia’s L1110 data instead of the data for the same variable from Germany.
Looking at the abbreviated list of displayed variables from the intersection of AUS and L1110, we can then choose to keep these variables for review and/or view them in the codebook. To choose which variables to keep, check the white box on the left-hand side of the screen. For this example, we will select L11102 for 2001 through 2003.
To peruse the distributions, scroll across the top of the screen to the 'Review Selected Variables' tab. Click on it, and pick one of the options.
Looking at the 'Review Selected Variables' tab, you'll swear that there are almost 320 more variables in this list then we had chosen in Step #6. Do not worry, this is perfectly normal. When viewing data from all countries, it is required that Unique Person Numbers from each country as well as all of Japan's data be included in the resulting variable list. If you chose a sub-study under PSID, or US only data, the only selected variables that would be required to be attached are the Unique Person Numbers for the US.
When you click on the 'Codebook' tab, Investigator will present a page that summarizes all variables you chose.
Please note two sets of buttons on the upper right of this screen. You can use the blue arrows to move forwards and backwards through all of your selected variables. The yellow 'Stats as Graphs' buttons allow you to see plots of the variables you selected.
Once you have selected your variables, save them. Do so using the right-most tab at the top of the screen that is labeled “Save/Download” tab.
Use the left-hand tab labeled 'Save Tagset' to save the list of variables that you selected. You can save them either to the Investigator sever or you can save them directly on your PC. You can also organize the tagset by either the variable number (Rnum) or by the Question Name and Country.
Note, if you save your tagset directly to your PC, the generated file will be in a .CNEF datafile format.
If you choose, you can amend the contents of a tagset/variable list that you previously generated and saved. To do that, you first open the saved tagset (see Step 2), then add variables and follow the procedure described above.
