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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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Search function
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 | [email protected]
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