Dataorganisation & description

Library – RDM Support Project

Basic training course for information specialists

RDMS Data organisation & description 2

Reasons for organisation & description

Human memory is fallible

All employment contracts come to an end sometime

Explaining the same thing over and over again gets

boring

RDMS Data organisation & description 3

Aim of organisation & description

Ensuring that the origin, structure and content of a

dataset are comprehensible to everyone at all times

RDMS Data organisation & description 4

Test question

What does someone who is not familiar with your data

need in order to find, assess, understand and reuse

your data?

RDMS Data organisation & description 5

Temperature: 32.3

Measured? Calculated? How?

When?

Where?

Temperature of what? Unit? Fahrenheit? Celsius?

Measured with what?

Was the equipment calibrated, and if so how?

RDMS Data organisation & description 6

Organisation

RDMS Data organisation & description 7

Benefit of organisation

Finding files easily (saving time)

Separating ongoing and completed work

(maintaining an overview)

Separating master files and working files (preventing

loss of files)

RDMS Data organisation & description 8

Do's

Assign clear names to folders and subfolders

Limit the number of levels in hierarchy

Describe structure in a readme.txt

RDMS Data organisation & description 9

Don’ts

Name folders and subfolders after researchers

Make identification of files dependent on the folder

that contains them

Have organisation determined by software from

which file structure cannot be exported

RDMS Data organisation & description 10

File names

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RDMS Data organisation & description 11

Good file names

make files findable

help to distinguish between different files and

versions of files

prevent confusion when sharing files

RDMS Data organisation & description 12

Possible building blocks

Brief description of content

Maker or indication of measuring instrument

Creation, recording or publication date

Version number

Project number and/or name of the research group

RDMS Data organisation & description 13

Practical tips

Make file names relevant and short (approx. 25

characters)

Do not use any special characters in file name

Use _underscores_ instead of spaces

RDMS Data organisation & description 14

Practical tips

Always enter dates in file names in the same way

(yyyymmdd / yymmdd)

Abbreviations or initials in the file name? Enter the

meaning in a readme.txt

Version management

Successive versions? Use numbers (v01, v02, etc.)

instead of designations such as "draft" or "final"

Different versions of the same file? Indicate this in the

file name (e.g. ‘tb’ for thumbnail)

If applicable: software for version management (SVN)

RDMS Data organisation & description 15

RDMS Data organisation & description 16

Test question

Does the file name contain the information needed to

identify the file, regardless of where the file is stored?

RDMS Data organisation & description 17

Example

../Research Data Management/Second outline for the

course January 2014.docx

better:

../201401_RDMCourseOutline_v02.docx

../201401RDMCourseOutline02.docx

RDMS Data organisation & description 18

Renaming files

Bulk Rename Utility (Windows)

Renamer 4 Mac (Mac)

Renamer (Mac)

PS Renamer (Windows, Mac, Linux)

RDMS Data organisation & description 19

MetadataDan Cohen is Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)

https://twitter.com/dancohen/status/431440078951682049

Metadata: functions

RDMS Data organisation & description 20

Make datasets findable: metadata provide the building

blocks that a repository's search function needs

Make datasets citable: metadata provide the elements

for a citation of a dataset

RDMS Data organisation & description 21

Types of metadata

Descriptive: identification, location, classification Technical: file formats, equipment settings, software or

hardware used Administrative: property rights, licence Use: access rights, embargo Retention: checksums, migration, conversion

RDMS Data organisation & description 22

When to use metadata?

Generally assigned when sharing, publishing and/or

filing data

Embedded metadata: automatically saved in file (≠

guarantee when moving file)

RDMS Data organisation & description 23http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfannemiek/3038325213/

RDMS Data organisation & description 24http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfannemiek/3038325213/meta

RDMS Data organisation & description 25

RDMS Data organisation & description 26

Standards

Generic: Dublin Core, DataCite

Field-specific: e.g. Data Documentation Initiative

(DDI, Social Sciences)

Standards of repositories and data portals

Searchable overview on DCC website

Dublin Core® Metadata Initiative (DCMI)

Contributor

Coverage

Creator

Date

Description

Format

Identifier

Language

Publisher

Relation

Rights

Source

Subject

Title

Type

RDMS Data organisation & description 27

RDMS Data organisation & description 28 Exam

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RDMS Data organisation & description 29

DataCite properties

AlternateIdentifier (O)

Contributor (R)

Creator (M)

Date (R)

Description (R)

Format (O)

GeoLocation (R)

Identifier (M)

Language (O)

PublicationYear (M)

Publisher (M)

RelateIdentifier (R)

ResourceType (R)

Rights (O)

Size (O)

Subject (R)

Title (M)

Version (O)

RDMS Data organisation & description 30

M = mandatory, R = recommended, O = optional

DataCite properties

RDMS Data organisation & description 31More examples at http://schema.datacite.org/meta/kernel-3/index.html

Choosing a standard

RDMS Data organisation & description 32

Which type of data is the researcher collecting?

What is customary in the field or research group?

Where is the data going to be deposited (= what

does the repository want and what can it do)?

Challenge

RDMS Data organisation & description 33

Convert the information a researcher has on his or her

dataset into the metadata fields used in a repository

Often far more multiple fields are possible and desired by the researcher

beforehand than are actually entered and used when searching (= experience

from previous data storage project)

Metadata: tools

RDMS Data organisation & description 34

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RDMS Data organisation & description 35

Documentation

RDMS Data organisation & description 36

(Meta)data vs documentation

Data

Metadata: description of data for computers

Documentation: description of data for humans

RDMS Data organisation & description 37

(Meta)data vs documentation - example

Data answers to questions

Metadata maker of survey, date survey

taken, etc.

Documentation survey itself, description of

method used, etc.

RDMS Data organisation & description 38

Documentation at three levels

Research project: context, methodology,

instruments

Dataset or database: relationship between files

File: content and structure of individual files

(variables, codes, etc.)

RDMS Data organisation & description 39

Test question

What does someone who is not familiar with your data

need in order to assess, understand and reuse your

data?

In practice…

RDMS Data organisation & description 40

Edinburgh University Data Library [Data Library]. (2012, May 4). MANTRA – John MacInnes – Data documentation in secondary data analysis. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/Ebaiwg08CW8

RDMS Data organisation & description 41

Information sources

Digital Curation Centre (DCC), Resources for digital curators: Disciplinary Metadatahttp://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/metadata-standards

Dublin Core® Metadata Initiative User Guidehttp://wiki.dublincore.org/index.php/User_Guide

DataCite Metadata Schemahttp://schema.datacite.org/meta/kernel-3/index.html

Stanford University Libraries, Metadata toolshttp://library.stanford.edu/research/data-management-services/data-best-practices/creating-metadata/metadata-tools

RDMS Data organisation & description 42

Publication information

Presentation:

Mariëtte van Selm | selm@uva.nl

Images, unless credited otherwise:

Jørgen Stamp | http://www.digitalbevaring.dk/

M. van Selm, RDM Support - basic training course for information specialists, course material for session 4. February 2014.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence