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