01-SocialExplorer.Rmd

# Using Social Explorer {#socialexplorer}


This chapter covers how to use the Social Explorer data tool to access demographic data for your neighborhood and the city that encompasses it. The tool is quite intuitive to use and allows you to quickly acquire current and historical census and demographic data. Although Social Explorer allows users to create maps, we will not use the mapping functionality. We will use a different mapping software - ArcGIS Online (AGOL) - that is easier to incorporate into the final ArcGIS Story Map that you will create at the end of the quarter. ArcGIS Online and Story Maps will be introduced in the subsequent tutorials. Social Explorer will be particularly helpful for you as you complete Neighborhood Assignment #1 (especially question #5). 

A basic outline of the steps you will need to take to complete the assignment are as follows: 

1. Sign into Social Explorer via Stanford Libraries with your Stanford credentials 
2. Navigate to tables
3. Select a dataset
4. Select a geography
5. Select variables
6. Export data

This tutorial will walk through each of the steps using the City of San Francisco as an example. 

## Accessing Social Explorer Data

Stanford provides students and staff with access to Social Explorer via an institutional license. All that is required to use Social Explorer is your Stanford key and password. Navigate to the Stanford Libraries homepage and type Social Explorer into the [search bar](https://library.stanford.edu/all/?q=social+explorer&op=Search). The first hit under the Catalog panel is the Social Explorer data tool. Click on the external Social Explorer link at the bottom of the top entry, which is outlined in red in the image below. 

![Stanford library login for Social Explorer](images\loggingin.png)


You will then be prompted to provide your Stanford credentials. After logging in you should see the Social Explorer home page. Navigate over to the Tables tab in the left-hand sidebar. The tab is outlined in red in the image below. 

![Social Explorer Home Page](images\social_explorer_home_page.png)


## Select a dataset

On the Tables page you will find a list of datasets. As you can see, Social Explorer has _a lot_ of datasets available. For the purposes of assignment #1, you will only need to focus on the **American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates.** Select the down arrow on the right-hand side of the ACS 5-year estimates tab to reveal the years of available data. You will want to use the most recent band of available data, which is the first entry in the list of 5 year survey estimates. Once you have identified the most recent round of the ACS 5 year estimates, click on **Begin Report**, which is highlighted in yellow in the image below.  

![Access the most recent ACS 5 year estimates from the Data Tables page.](images\select_dataset.png)

**Background on ACS Data:**
The [American Community Survey](https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs) is a demographic survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that runs all year, every year. It is the yearly counterpart to the decennial census. The ACS survey asks a wider array of questions than the decennial census (e.g., household income, commute time, home values, immigration status) to a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. ACS data, despite its various limitations, is some of the best data researchers and practitioners typically have to understand who is in our urban areas and how they are doing in their year-to-year lives. Understanding how to access and work with this data is critical, and this tutorial will just scratch the surface of learning about ACS/Census data. 


## Select your geography 

Now you can filter down the data to your area of interest. In the case of Assignment #1, question #5, you will want to **filter to the city in which your neighborhood is located.** The steps and image below walk you through how to fill out the geographic options for filtering the data. ^[In future assignments, you may want to filter to the census tracts that comprise your neighborhood. Instead, of selecting the place geography, you would select census tracts and select the census tract identifiers that belong to your neighborhood.] 

1. Select **Place** (i.e., geographic code 160) in the first drop down menu. 
2. In the second drop-down menu, select the **state** in which your city is located. 
3. Finally, select the **city** in the list of places. Use the key-command Ctrl-F (Command-F on Mac) and type the city name in the search bar to more quickly find and highlight the city in the list of places. **Be sure to click on the city after it has been highlighted in the list.** 
4. After you have clicked on the city, select the **Add** button below the list of geographic areas. 
5. Once you see the city in the list of selected geographies at the bottom of the page, then click on **Proceed to Tables.**

![Filter to your geographic area of interest](images\select_geography.png)


## Select your variables

Now, we are at one of the more exciting parts of the data extraction process - picking variables! For assignment #1, you will want to pick variables that are comparable to the ones in the FFIEC Geocoding System's report for the census tracts in your neighborhoods (e.g., total population, median family income, racial demographics, housing characteristics - number of housing units, housing tenure, vacant units, etc.). This will allow you to compare and contrast the characteristics of your neighborhood and the city overall. 

1. Leave the first drop-down menu for datasets as-is (i.e., Social Explorer Tables ...). 
2. The **second selection box** is where you select the variables (i.e., variables are referred to as Tables in Social Explorer terminology). Like before, **click on the variable(s) in the list that you want** and then select the **Add button** below. Make sure all of the variables that you want are in the selected variables list at the bottom of the page. 
3. Once the variables are in the list, select the **Show results** button. 

The image below gives you an example of what you should see on this screen. 

![Select variables of interest](images\select_variables.png)


## View & Export data

You are now ready to view your data and use it in the analysis and write-up for your assignment. Social Explorer gives you multiple export options. When you clicked **Show results**, you were taken to the report page, which shows in tabular format the breakdown for each of the variables you had selected. This format should be sufficient for comparing the population and housing statistics for the city to your neighborhood. Before you leave Social Explorer, save your report in case you want to come back to it at a later time. Click on the **Save As** button in the top right corner of the page and give your report a title. See the image below for an example. 

![Save your data as a Social Explorer Report](images\save_report.png)

Once you have saved the report, one other nice feature is that you can share it with others via a web-link. If you would like to share, click on the icon next to the Save As button and copy the link. 

If you would prefer to download the data to save it to a folder locally on your computer, navigate to the **Excel tab**, which is outlined in red below. 

1) Select both radio boxes under the **General options** header, which will give you the statistics for all variables in both percentages and counts.
2) Select the Excel file format version you would prefer (.xlsx or .xls). 
3) Open up the the file in your downloads folder to view the data. 


![Export data as an Excel file](images\export_excel.png)