RDAP 15: “This is just for me”: Researchers on their data documentation practices

Beyond Metadata:

Supporting non-standardized documentation to facilitate data reuse

RDAP 2015April 23, 2015

Panel Outline

Researchers on their data documentation practices, Sara Mannheimer, @sara_mannh

Leveraging the ReadMe to support disciplinary documentation needs, Lizzy Rolando

Providing access to restricted data in our institutions, Sarah Pickle, @sarahepickle

Teaching documentation for researchers, Kristin Briney, @KristinBriney

“This is just for me”Researchers on their

data documentation practices

Sara MannheimerMontana State University Library

@sara_mannh#RDAP15

Outline

Contextualizing data

Researchers on data documentation

Lessons learned + next steps

Why isn’t metadata sufficient?

Metadata is Structured

Data is Messy

http://edgerton-digital-collections.org/notebooks/22

Metadata is often domain-specific

Contextualizing Data

Associated publications

Lab notebooks

Readme files

Data dictionaries

Codebooks

Data by Discipline

Chemistry

Ecology/Climate Modeling

Computer Science

Microbiology

Earth Sciences/Geography

Chemistry

Training manual with data documentation protocols

Procedures document explaining experiment design and data formatting

Numbering system to reference reactions

Chemistry

“The supplemental information describes a lot of what would be found in a ReadMe”

Chemistry

“This is just for me”

Ecology/Climate Modeling

Ecology/Climate Modeling

“I think computer scientists would probably be trained in these things, but we’re not computer

scientists—I mean, we are now!”

Computer Science

Notes, code, and project files are archived in Github.

Collected data is stored in a MySQL database, but “we don’t generate any real documentation of what's in our databases, outside of some initial

design schemas.”

Microbiology

On lab notebooks: “Effectively keeping a diary of what you’re doing every day”

“Calculations work better on paper”

For analysis and processing, Excel or discipline-specific software is used

Microbiology

“Write it so that you can figure it out, but with

the idea is that someone else should be able to figure it out too”

Microbiology

http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do#Category-deposit

Earth Sciences/Geography

Former projects have had more formatting, but more recently free form

Templates document: time of interview, observations of person, property, house

Earth Sciences/Geography

“I might try to anonymize, but it can get complex to de-identify the data”

“I might make survey instrument available, but it’s not a priority”

Lessons Learned + Next Steps

Discipline-specific approaches

Discipline-specific best practices

Different perspectives on the value of reuse

Different levels of need for library data services

Lessons Learned + Next Steps

Conduct more researcher interviews

Tailor outreach to most needy disciplines

Develop discipline-specific services

Thanks!

sara.mannheimer@montana.edu

@sara_mannh