DataMarket: Step-by-step

First encounters

You want to see historical prices of potatoes.

1. Go to the DataMarket front page
2. Enter potatoes price into the search box and hit Search. This will return a few data sets.
3. Locate the data set Retail prices of some commodities and services 1980-2009 and click the title to open it
4. This will open the data set in the data view where you can configure the data you want to examine. This particular data set has only one dimension: Commodities
5. In the list of commodities you'll find Potatoes. Check the box next to it and then click Visualize this

Now you can see how the price of potatoes has developed in Icelandic Krona (ISK) since 1980. Hovering over the chart will enable you to read the value for each year. You can compare this to the price of other commodities by adding checks to the respective boxes and hitting Visualize this again.

The tabs Charts and Table will switch from one view to another. If you want to do some further work with this data, you can download it to Excel (CSV format) using the Open in Excel button in the bottom-right corner.

Linking data sets

Now we want to see how the population of Iceland has grown.

1. Go to the DataMarket front page
2. Click Find data in the menu at the top of the screen. This opens an overview of the category tree.
3. Under People you'll find Population. Click it.
4. This category holds quite a lot of data sets. Page through them until you see Population - key figures 1703-2009 (on page 6 at the time of writing). Open it.
5. This data set also has only one dimension: Unit. Select Population increase and click Visualize this. Interesting, right? But what about the future?
6. Click the button Add dataset. This will open a small search input box. Enter population projection and click Search for data. Find the data set Population projection by main indicators 2008-2050 and click Add to list.
7. Select Population increase for this data set as well and click Visualize this.

Now you see the history and projection of population increase (and decrease) in Iceland from 1703 to 2050, a time-span of almost 350 years. This way you can link any two - or more - data sets within DataMarket to compare and merge their data.

Linking time series to events

This time we want to look at opportunities in the hotel industry.

1. Open the DataMarket front page.
2. Search for accommodation using the search box.
3. Locate the data set Overnight stays, arrivals and average length of stay in all types of accommodation 1998-2008 and open it.
4. This data set has three dimensions: Citizenship, Unit and Region. Select Total, Overnight stays and Total respectively. Then click Visualize this and look at the chart.
5. Now, remove Total from Citizenship. Instead select Italy and United Kingdom and redraw the chart

Now you see the difference in the visit patterns of Italians and Brits to Iceland. Not likely to get a lot of Italian visitors in the wintertime! You can see that visitors from the UK come quite a lot in the spring with a spike on the Easter holiday. But what about the spike in the autumn, clearly visible every year since 2002? Hover the mouse over the chart and you'll see that this spike is in October every year. What is it that attracts UK visitors in October?

Let's investigate...

1. Click the label Markers just above the chart.
2. This will open a search box to search for news and events. Unfortunately we only have an Icelandic news source at the moment. Stay tuned on that one. However, you can manually add events.
3. Click the Create new marker button. This allows you to manually enter events to display on the graph. If you know of a conference, festival or other annual events that might explain the spike, you can try entering them. Dates are expected in the format YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. 2007-06-17 for the 17th of June, 2007. Only a date and a Title are needed to create a marker.
4. For now, we'll tell you that every October, there is a music festival called Iceland Airwaves. Try adding a few markers to indicate that, e.g.: 2005-10-06, 2006-10-08, 2007-10-05 and 2008-10-09. You can title them whatever you like.

Now look at the chart. You'll see flags on the x-axis indicating the dates that you entered. Hovering them will show the title and if you entered a URL, clicking them will open that URL in your browser. We're sorry for the currently limited functionality for English-speaking users, but imagine the power when you'll be able to search international news networks and link their news to interesting developments in any time series.

The court is yours

Now you should be able to find pretty much any data that is available within DataMarket, compare time series, link them to events and educate yourself about the Icelandic economy, society and nature.

Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments.