Methodology

Tracing your own work

Enter a workplace and a title to find a profession. Common job titles and aliases lead to a profession card. Where several fields fit, you choose one. The initial trace runs in your browser tab. If you choose Look up sources, Door Notes receives the employer and job title for that request. It sends the employer name to participating public indexes and uses the role to check relevance. The search service does not store the submitted fields. You can clear your entries. Shared links and images contain only the public profession record.

The trace follows the institutions that shaped access for Black professionals. Employer-specific links appear only when a cited source documents a connection for that workplace and profession. A training partnership describes an institutional relationship. Your personal hiring and training history would need its own evidence.

What a gap means

“Not yet researched” describes coverage we have not established. A completed search with no relevant result describes only the sources checked. Unavailable publishers and conflicting accounts are separate outcomes. None proves that a history does not exist. The next-record question identifies what could help establish the missing connection.

Choosing a workplace and title

The suggestion fields search directories downloaded to your browser. The first line names the actual workplace. When a source identifies a school district, university system or other affiliation, it appears underneath. Choose the specific site you work at or keep the text you entered. A listing identifies an organization; workplace history and awards require their own evidence.

Job-title suggestions include terms from the O*NET® 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. The vocabulary is adapted under CC BY 4.0. See the O*NET database, title sources and attribution, and workplace-directory sources. Your typed words remain usable when a listing is missing. The optional federal-recipient search sends the workplace text to USAspending only after you click its button.

How the timeline connects the evidence

Your preview shows the earliest indexed historical episode in the profession record, which is not necessarily the first opening in the field, the strongest available evidence for your workplace, and the connections still missing. Open the full timeline to see the other milestones and their sources.

Field history names a specific institution, the change it made and the date its source supports. Workplace steps identify a published relationship or award for the employer and role. A date range stays a range. We label missing event dates and distinguish publication or index dates from event dates.

Chronology shows order. It does not establish a chain of cause. A named institutional connection has its own citation. A gap marks where a link to your employer or your individual hiring route is unknown. Your current job is attributed to your entry. The general entry context remains separate from exact workplace evidence.

The first timeline can use dated, locally indexed awards without sending your entries to a publisher. Choosing Look up sources checks for more evidence. Documented results update the timeline; research leads remain below for review.

Live employer research

You can research an employer outside the reviewed directory and a job title outside the profession index. Each result links to the publisher or its source record. A documented award identifies the recipient and connects funding to institutional access or training in the field. Funding establishes what was awarded. Hiring or training outcomes require their own evidence. A research lead needs closer reading before drawing that connection. Live results are separate from reviewed editorial entries and national measurements.

The service searches public education and research records, plus recent news coverage when available. Public indexes have uneven coverage. Each live result links back to its source. Where an earlier dated index supplies a result, the page labels it separately. An empty result means this search found no matching record. An unavailable index is labeled separately. A wider web search is optional and sends the displayed employer and role terms to the search engine.

Open-source code, data and attribution ↗

People, decisions and outcomes

Every expanded field history identifies the barrier, the people involved, the decision-maker, the change and the result its sources establish. Open “Decision, outcome & evidence” for the scope and a page, section or other locator. The source register includes historical records as well as statistical tables.

Contemporary records, institutional histories and oral histories are labeled separately. A publisher’s program announcement does not establish completed training or employment. A court order establishes the remedy ordered; actual compliance needs another record. An early credential establishes that person’s achievement, not automatically a route they created for everyone else.

Every field history is public and readable without entering an employer. A workplace connection requires evidence for the exact organization and role. A parent organization or related field is context, not a substitute for that link.

Claims instead of category pairs

Earlier editions assigned broad origin/gate labels and generated a sentence from the first pair. Those sentences have been retired. The current record separates historical institutions, entry decisions, measured representation and unresolved questions. Admissions, licensing, hiring, funding and promotion are different decisions; we name the authority only as far as the source supports it.

Historical sources describe their period and place. Context about an entry route is not a current local eligibility determination. Consult the linked official authority for present requirements.

How job titles become paths

Door Notes matches your wording against published professions and the occupations listed for each title in O*NET. When a title has several meanings, you can choose the duties closest to your work. For example, a systems administrator may manage networks or databases.

A related field can offer historical context. Each historical event and each connection to a workplace needs its own source. Charts follow the occupation defined by their publisher. Job matching runs in your browser.

How career suggestions work

The explorer uses the activities you choose and the tasks in five published occupation records. It shows where a job uses those activities and links you to the original task descriptions. You can skip either question, compare different roles, or change your answers.

The Career map brings together occupation duties, Black field history and possible next steps. The detailed guides cite the Bureau of Labor Statistics for advancement. An occupation directory entry can identify duties even where we have not reviewed its history or a transition. Its responsibility examples describe the kind of work someone does. Local grades and promotion decisions require evidence from the employer. Each Door Note identifies what its historical source establishes and what is still open.

Try the activity picker → · Explore career moves →

Who is counted

Each series follows its publisher’s definition of race, sex, occupation, geography and denominator. The default comparison uses the source’s Black male and Black female categories. Birthplace is unrestricted unless the definition explicitly says otherwise.

Workforce share uses everyone employed in the matched occupation as its denominator. A training-entry percentage uses the corresponding student cohort. The historical civilian labor force may also include experienced unemployed workers. Choose the relevant measure on each card.

Percentages use one decimal for display. Charts use straight segments between consecutive comparable observations. The 2003 marker flags a federal race-reporting change. Each source’s actual boundaries apply, and a change of definition or a missing year breaks a line. A single point is one observation.

Counts come from published tables or weighted survey estimates. ACS estimates use person weights. Where available, the source data include survey sampling uncertainty. The chart does not extrapolate back to 1990.

Report an error

Use the correction form on GitHub. Identify the profession, historical episode or source table, describe the issue and link the supporting evidence. The tracker is public.

Edition notes

Research preview · November 2026. Expanded historical records, source-linked decisions and statistical snapshots. Source checks are documented in each episode; independent historian review and reader comprehension testing have not been completed.

Door Notes is editorial analysis of public data and is independent of the publishers cited. This edition collects no visitor analytics.