Charts and graphs at classroom pace: an introduction to Timetric for teachers and lecturers

You're preparing a lesson for a classroom full of students - you need to be able to quickly show them a graph, and give them the data to work with.

Yes, there's lots of free data on the web - but it's hard to find it in the right form, and it's hard to get it out in a form your students can use.

You don't want to use the same old examples from textbooks a decade old - it's boring for the students, and worse, it's boring for you!

You and your students deserve better: this is where we come in. We index and aggregate the world's economic data from the best public sources, sort and organize it so you can quickly find what you're looking for, and turn it all into interactive charts you can use just like YouTube videos. Loads of sites already use us, like The Guardian, This Is Money & Liberation... Even better, it's free to use, and you can get started right away. It only takes five minutes or so.

Step one: find the data you're looking for

There are four routes to find the stats you need — by subject, by source, by the country it's about, and by using our search engine.

If you know the source the data comes from, or the country you want information about, then it's really easy to get going. Choose the source or country from our list (http://timetric.com/dataset/, http://timetric.com/country/). You can use the search and filters on the left to narrow down the statistics you're looking at. Just tick any stats you'd like to add to the graph.

If you're only interested in one statistic, though, click on its name to go to its dedicated page.

We've set up pages — just like the by-country and by-source ones — for the most popular subjects on Timetric, too. Pick the one you're interested in from our topic pages (http://timetric.com/topic/), and it works just like the country and source pages above.

Finally, anywhere you see a search box like this one, you can search all the data on Timetric:

We'll highlight any sources, countries or topics which match your search right at the top of the results page, followed by any individual statistics which match. Click through and then, again, it all works just like before.

Step two: set the graph up the way you want it

Set the time range the chart's over by zooming in (click and drag the mouse), and use the controls in the upper right to change the y-axis to log scale (or split two series across different y-axes). When the chart looks right, you're ready for step three.

Step three: click "embed" and copy the code into your website

Everywhere you see the embed button — it looks like this:

you can grab a chart to share with your audience. Click on the button to pop up the wizard.

You can tweak various things here, too. Just set them to whatever you'd like. Alternatively, on countries, topics and sources, you can grab the graph complete with controls, letting your readers analyze our data themselves (although it's pretty wide, so make sure you have the space!). To do that, just click the 'Dataset' tab at the top.

That's it — you're ready to go! Copy the code and paste it into your site and you're done. Time for a coffee.

What next - well, if you've got more ideas about what data you want, or if you need premium support or other advanced features, get in touch with us right away. Email us: education@timetric.com. We're looking forward to hearing from you!