American Community Survey Alert

Here's an update from the American Community Survey:

http://www.census.gov/acs/www/UseData/Compass/compass_series.html

ACS Compass Products

Over the next six months, the Census Bureau will be releasing a series of handbooks, a set of presentations, and an e-learning tutorial to provide guidance to users on how to understand and best use ACS data. This set of educational materials is called the ACS Compass Products.

Today marks the first release of ACS Compass Products and includes the following two audience-specific handbooks in PDF format:

• What General Data Users Need to Know - This handbook helps general audiences understand the basics of the ACS, its opportunities and challenges, and how to access and use the ACS data on the Census Bureau's Web site. It includes concrete examples of how ACS data can be used to answer real-world questions about our society.
• What the Business Community Needs to Know - This handbook acknowledges that to make effective use of the ACS, businesses need to understand how ACS data are collected and reported, and their advantages and limitations relative to the long form data previously collected during the decennial census.

This handbook describes the data products available from the ACS and how to access them. Examples are provided with step-by-step instructions on accessing the data.

The ACS Compass Products handbooks may be found at: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/UseData/Compass/compass_series.html