Explore#

The Explore view lets you find items by browsing concepts or topics. It is located at /explore.

Explore Views#

A portal may offer several explore views, for example one for each series of studies. When more than one view is available, the Explore page lists them, grouped by category, with a description, the waves and time period covered, and a link to the source data when these are configured. Click a view’s title to open it. If only one view is configured, it opens automatically.

Explore views are configured automatically from the metadata in the repository, or by the administrator using the Explore settings in appsettings.json. See appsettings.json.

Concept Tree#

The left bar of the Explore page shows the selected view and a hierarchical list of concepts, or topics. Select one of these concepts to browse the portal for variables, questions, and other metadata about that topic.

Some views show a tree of studies and data files instead of concepts. Select a study to view its citation information and related materials, or a data file to view its variables.

View Modes#

Use the View dropdown to choose how the items for the selected concept are displayed. Depending on the configuration of the view, the following modes are available.

Concordance: A table comparing variables across datasets, times, or populations.
Variables: A list of the variables for the selected concept.
Questions: A list of the questions for the selected concept.

You can link directly to a concept in a view using the view, mode, and concept query string parameters, for example /explore?view=demo&mode=variables&concept=example.org:1234....

Concordance Table#

The concordance table shows variables from different datasets, times, or populations in a comparable way. Each row describes the information measured by a variable. Each column represents a different dataset, time, or population for which a measurement exists. Each cell displays the name of a specific variable, with an icon indicating whether the variable is numeric, text, or coded. A badge next to a coded variable indicates that it uses a unique code list; hover over the badge to see the codes.

Use the Concordance dropdown to choose among three presentations.

Wide: The full table, with hierarchical column headers for the studies and datasets.
Compact: A list of rows on the left. Select a row to see a table of the variables in the row, with the file, data type, name, and label of each.
Timeline: Rows are concepts and columns are time periods. A marker indicates that a variable exists for that period.

Click the basket icon on a row to add all the row’s variables to your basket. Click a variable to open its detail page.

Variable and Question Lists#

The variable list shows all the variables for the selected concept, along with breadcrumbs showing which datasets they belong to. The question list shows all the questions for the selected concept. Select an item to view its details. When Elasticsearch is enabled, the lists can be filtered by series, study, or data file. Check Add to basket to add an item to your basket.

Explore a Data File#

Each data file can also be explored directly, at /data/{agency}/{identifier}. This page lists the data file’s properties, the number of rows, and its variables with their type, label, name, and summary statistics. Expand a variable to see its frequencies and summary statistics. Topics on the left filter the variable list.