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Data Management: Documentation & Metadata

Data Management: Documentation & Metadata. Types of Documentation. Data Documentation (Metadata). Informal or formal methods to describe your data Important if you want to reuse your own data in the future Also necessary when sharing your data. You ’ re already documenting your data.

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Data Management: Documentation & Metadata

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  1. Data Management:Documentation & Metadata Types of Documentation

  2. Data Documentation (Metadata) • Informal or formal methods to describe your data • Important if you want to reuse your own data in the future • Also necessary when sharing your data

  3. You’re already documenting your data • Notebook • Paper • Digital • Lab • Folders with notes, text files • Sources, experiments or surveys, procedures, etc.

  4. Documentation in Research

  5. Types of Documentation Documentation for understanding & re-use • Readme File • Data Dictionary • Codebook

  6. ReadMe • Describes the core documentation about an investigation and its data files • Typically a simple text file • Can describe the individual file(s) and/or data package as a whole

  7. ReadMe Example - Dataset

  8. Data Dictionary • Provides definitions of the data fields in a data file • More details on the variables, observations of a file • Used to understand the data and the databases that contain it • Identifies data elements and their attributes including names, definitions and units of measure and other information • Often they are organized as a table http://www.pnamp.org/sites/default/files/best_practices_for_data_dictionary_definitions_and_usage_version_1.1_2006-11-14.pdf

  9. Data Dictionary Example

  10. What is a Codebook? • Typical in social sciences research • Includes elements similar to readme and dictionary • Project level information (e.g. survey design and methodology) • Response codes for each variable • Codes used to indicate nonresponse and missing data http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/support/faqs/2006/01/what-is-codebook

  11. What is a Codebook? • Additionally, codebooks may also contain: • A copy of the survey questionnaire (if applicable) • Exact questions and skip patterns used in a survey • Frequencies of response • Quite long! http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/support/faqs/2006/01/what-is-codebook

  12. Other Examples of Data Documentation • Lab notebooks • Software syntax • Programming code • Instrument settings and/or calibration • Provenance of sources of data • Embedded metadata (e.g. EXIF, FITS)

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