Structure and document your research data

Transcription

1 Structure and document your research data Ali, Abdurhman Kelil, PhD University Library 17 April 2018 Learn how to manage your research data according to best practice! Bilde:

2 The Lifecycle of Research Data Management

3 Learning objectives for this module why is it important to structure and document your data how to do it in a persistent way where to find more information and help Please feel free to interrupt for questions or comments!

4 Why?

5 Why?..a systematic human error in coding the name of the files had been made during the extraction of the EEG template topographic maps best differentiating the two experimental conditions at the single subject level.

6 How to structure your data in a persistent way? Data must be understandable for others. Also many years from now. Think of structuring data early in the project. Key issues: Data storage File naming File description File format Restructuring and reformatting afterwards can be timeconsuming and tedious. For more information on how to structure and document your data, see

7 Data storage

8 Data Storage: Backups Avoid data loss by establishing good backup routines: Regular backup Several backups: Here: e.g. your computer Near: e.g. your home directory at UiT (\\homer.uit.no) Far: e.g. a cloud service like mydoc/onedrive at UiT ( Shared storage areas, e.g. udoc at UiT ( Versioning = keep track of changes For more information and help, see the section Archiving and sharing your research data in the UiT Research Data Portal.

9 File and Folder Naming and Organizing Some fundamental file naming recommendations: Files should be named consistently File names should be descriptive, but short (< 25 characters) Use underscores ( _ ) instead of spaces Avoid characters like / \ : *.? < > [ ] ( ) & $ ææ øø åå ää. Use the international dating convention YYYY-MM-DD

10 File Naming Order by date: _notes_MassObs.docx Order by subject: _questionnaire_MassObs.pdf Gorer_notes_ docx _notes_Gorer.docx Gorer_questionnaire_ pdf _questionnaire_Gorer.pdf MassObs_notes_ docx MassObs_questionnaire_ pdf Order by type: Notes_Gorer_ docx Notes_MassObs_ docx Force order with numbering: Questionnaire_Gorer_ pdf 01_MassObs_questionnaire_ pdf Questionnaire_MassObs_ pdf 02_MassObs_notes_ docx 03_Gorer_questionnaire_ pdf 04_Gorer_notes_ docx Source: The University of California, Santa Cruz, Data Management Library Guides, Movie Tutorials, Module 1.3: File Naming. Viewed May 24, 2016 at

11 Folder naming and organization Use a consistent strategy. Main structure should be visible in the file names. - Also useful for archiving afterwards. Document it in a ReadMe-file.

12 Documentation / metadata: ReadMe files ReadMe file = description of your dataset / user guide to your data Best practice recommendations for ReadMe files: Start early Describe contact information what the dataset is about file structure and naming conventions where to find which data = overview of your files methods and workflow column headings in tabular data abbreviations units of measure... Save as Unicode.txt Check specific metadata requirements (discipline, archive,...)

13 Archiving: Preparing Selection Do not exclude negative / null data Include raw version and analyzed version(s) Provide your data in original AND persistent file format ensure the long term use of your files.

14 Persistent file formats Usually non-proprietary, open, with documented international standards, in common usage by the research community, using standard character encodings (i.e. ASCII, UTF-8), uncompressed (space permitting)

15 Archiving: Persistent file formats Persistent file formats for common document types: Document type Non-persistent format (examples) Text MS Word (.docx) PDF/A More information in our depositing guidelines. Persistent format Spreadsheet MS Excel (.xlsx) Tabulator-separated Unicode UTF-8 text (.txt) Image Windows Bitmap (.bmp) Uncompressed TIFF Sound AAC (.m4a) WAV Video Quicktime (.mov) MPEG-4 Database MS Access (.accdb) XML or tabulatorseparated Unicode text (.txt)

16 Spreadsheet/tabular data >>.txt Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, etc. Convert to Tab delimited Unicode plain text file (.txt). Each sheet in the workbook must be converted. NB! Avoid commas, semicolons, tabs in the data entries: Might cause trouble when imported to spreadsheet, or read by other software Figures & charts? Convert them into PDF/A. Information on how to convert files into a persistent file format in our depositing guidelines

17 Exercise A) Documentation Find a ReadMe-file for a published dataset in your field. Is the dataset described understandably? B) File formats What kind of file formats do you use for your data? Are they persistent? If not, what persistent formats will you use? See our depositing guidelines:

18 More information and help: UiT Resaerch Data Portal:

19 Ready for archiving! Course module Share your research data

20 Fill in our evaluation form! bit.ly\ubevalen Teacher s name: Data group Date: Course title: Research data THANK YOU, AND GOOD LUCK! research-data@support.uit.no 23