Data catalogue

Search tips

1. You can search for studies or series by typing in a search term (words, a study number, year) in the search box. The spaces between words are interpreted as AND.
2. You can also do complex searches using the Boolean operators OR, NOT.
3. Your search query is treated both as a free-text search (i.e. it will match occurrences of that search string in the most relevant metadata fields in the catalogue records) and as a Keyword search.
   
   Keywords are subject terms which have been used to index each study at the concept or variable level, and represent the concepts covered by that study. They have mainly been drawn from the European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST).
   
   ELSST keywords:
• Can be searched directly by typing “Keyword:” into the search box, followed by the Keyword in question in capital letters, for example Keyword:POVERTY.
• Are linked to ELSST. Clicking on them takes you to the thesaurus, where you can learn more about the concepts and navigate through the thesaurus structure to find other appropriate terms to search for in the data catalogue.
• Find out more about using ELSST to search for data.
  
  
4. The autosuggest menu displays possible terms and a list of ELSST keywords.
5. You can use the following filters to refine your search:

• Date from: Scroll up/down or type in a year.
• Date to: Scroll up/down or type in a year.
• Topic: Topic is the overall subject area of a study or series. Click on the empty box and choose one of the options offered. You can type one or more words to reduce the range of options. Note: The filter only contains a limited set of high-level topics.
• Data type: Data type includes cohort and longitudinal studies, UK survey data, business micro data and census data. Click on the empty box and select one of the options. You can type one or more words to reduce the range of options.
• Access: Data held within the UK Data Service collections are subject to three access levels: open, safeguarded and controlled. Click on the box and select one of the following options:
• Open: open access. No registration required, free to download.
• Safeguarded: requires registration. Safeguarded data are either End User Licence (agree to End User Licence and log in to access data) or Special Licence (require additional specific permission from depositor to access data).
• Controlled: restricted to ‘Approved Researchers’. Requires face-to-face security training and data access limited through a physical or virtual environment.
• Country: Click on the empty box and choose one of the options offered. You can type one or more words to reduce the range of options.

Results page:

1. You can sort your results by using the options ‘most recently released’, ‘date of collection (newest)’, ‘relevance’, or title (A-Z or Z-A).
2. Clicking on the title of a study or series takes you to the corresponding data catalogue record page, which provides you with:
   
   
• detailed information on the title, study number, PID, series, principal investigator, sponsors, contributors, topics, keywords, abstract, coverage and methodology, citation and copyright, the edition history, and the DOI
• documentation
• resources
• access conditions.

Read the Data Impact blog on Search Optimisation of our Data Catalogue to find out more information about the enhancements and optimisation of the search functionality of the data catalogue.