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This presentation covers several reasons why to improve your data management and offers several strategies for documentation.
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Documenting Your Data
Kristin Briney, PhDData Services Librarian
victoriabernal, https://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriabernal/6294851265 (CC BY-NC-SA)
justgrimes, https://www.flickr.com/photos/notbrucelee/8016192302 (CC BY-SA)
DOCUMENTATION
Brady, https://www.flickr.com/photos/freddyfromutah/4424199420 (CC BY)
Documentation
• Why?– Data without notes are unusable– Because you won’t remember everything– For others who may need to use your files
Documentation
• When?– Always– Documentation needs will vary between files
What would someone unfamiliar with your data need in order to find, evaluate, understand, and reuse them?
Documentation
• How?– Take good notes• Concise and legible• Record more, not less• Understandable to someone “skilled in the art”
Documentation
• How?– Methods• Protocols• Code• Survey• Codebook• Data dictionary• Anything that lets someone reproduce your results
Documentation
• How?– Templates• Add structure to notes• Decide on a list of information before you collect data
– Make sure you record all necessary details– Takes a few minutes upfront, easy to use later
• Print and post in prominent place or use as worksheet
Example
• I need to collect:– Date– Experiment– Scan number– Powers– Wavelengths– Concentration (or sample weight)– Calibration factors, like timing and beam size
Documentation
• How?– README.txt• For digital information, address the questions
– “What the heck am I looking at?”– “Where do I find X?”
• Use for project description in main folder• Use to document conventions• Use where ever you need extra clarity
Example
• Project-wide README.txt– Basic project information• Title• Contributors• Grant info• etc.
– Contact information for at least one person– All locations where data live, including backups
Example
“Talk_v1: rough outline of talk Talk_v2: draft of talk Talk_v3: updated 2014-01-15 after feedback”
“ ‘Data’ folder contains all raw data files by date ‘Analysis’ has analyzed data and plots ‘Paper’ has drafts of article on this work”
Documentation
• How?– Metadata schemas• http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/metadata-standards
– Highly structured documentation• If you have a lot of documentation to search and mine• If you need to share your data
Example• Contributor
– Jane Collaborator
• Creator– Kristin Briney
• Date– 2013 Apr 15
• Description– A microscopy image of
cancerous breast tissues under 20x zoom. This image is my control, so it has only the standard staining describe on 2013 Feb 2 in my notebook.
• Format– JPEG
• Identifier– IMG00057.jpg
• Relation– Same sample as images
IMG00056.jpg and IMG00055.jpg
• Subject– Breast cancer
• Title– Cancerous breast tissue control
WHAT TO DO FROM HERE
Chris Hoving, https://www.flickr.com/photos/pcrucifer/2433274595 (CC BY-ND)
Data Services
• uwm.edu/libraries/dataservices
• Data Services Librarian– Kristin Briney
Thank You!
• This presentation available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license
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