Last question...social science?

Social science
"the study of society and the manner in which people behave and impact on the world around us and includes disciplines such as economics, law, sociology, psychology, business studies, education, politics and international studies."

UK Strategy for Data Resources for Social and Economic Research 2009-2012, p.8

And a data collection is...?

Data collection
A data collection is typically comprised of three components: data, documentation and metadata. Occasionally, a fourth component of code exists. Data collections are typically organised by reference to a particular survey or research topic and cover a specific geographic area and time period.

UK Data Archive (2010), UK Data Archive Preservation Policy, pp.14-15

Well, what's documentation then?

Documentation
Documentation is that portion of a data collection that is required in order to re-use data. It commonly covers the subjects of sampling design, methods of data collection, questionnaire/interview design, structure of the data files, lists of variables and coding schemes, details of weighting, confidentiality and anonymisation, and provenance of any secondary data used. It also includes licence arrangements and all materials obtained through the original negotiation and data deposit, as well as post-deposit information created during preservation and ingest activities. The terms metadata and documentation are often used interchangeably and there is overlap between the two, though documentation tends to have a structure that is specific to each data collection.

UK Data Archive (2010), UK Data Archive Preservation Policy, pp.14-15

Ok, so data mangagement...fine, but what is/are data?

Data
Data are all the material, regardless of format, which are intended to be analysed. As part of datasets, they are the primary element of a data collection. More precise definitions of data vary according to context. Quantitative data may refer to just the matrices of numbers or words that comprise a data file, but may also cover other information (metadata) held within a statistical package data file, such as variable labels, code labels and missing value definitions. Qualitative data might include interview transcripts as well as audio and video recordings (analogue or digital).

UK Data Archive (2010), UK Data Archive Preservation Policy, pp.14-15

Progress report

This blog was intended as an experiement. The problem I've found in maintaining it was that it was difficult to be informative about the progress of the project and the challenges and problems we were encountering, and maintain a level of confidentiality as to who and where we were encountering these challenges and problems. Twitter takes care of the informative aspect, while this blog was seeming more like a commentary on the standard of spreads and hospitality provided by centres and programmes (which by the way has been excellent).

 

However, we are around mid-point. Last week our progress report was approved and arising from it we reported three main themes emerging from project in terms of outputs and training.

• Data ownership. A lack of awareness about who owns primary data, and a lack of consideration about the implications of using secondary data in terms of licences and copyright.
• A need to devise strategies and tools for working across institutions.
• Difficulty in getting good data from centres and programmes on data management costs.

For a richer explination of these themes we have produced a report on current data management practices in the social sciences

 

Our next challenge is to devise centre specific strategies to address these themes, but stratagies that can also have a generic application for social science data investments.