academic writing and research data management
DESCRIPTION
Presentation prepared for the European Survey Research Association conference in Ljubjlana, 17 July 2013.TRANSCRIPT
Academic writing and Research Data Management
Alexia Katsanidou, Uwe Jensen, Laurence Horton
GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
@archivetraining
www.gesis.org/admtc
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Structured metadata
Title
Principal Investigator(s)
Funder
Catalogue number
Abstract
Keywords
File format(s) Date(s) of collection
Geographic (spatial) unit(s)
Universe of analysis
Case count
Documentation
Tools for data collection
Sampling frame & procedure
Weighting/control actions
Variables list
Version
License/Usage agreement
Ownership
Citation text
Publication requirement
Contact information
Data description
Description of methodology used
Description of requirements for access
Standardized fields to be populated by the project/archive
Documentation
• Contextual materials generated by project as part of data gathering– Questionnaire– Interviewer instructions– Flash cards– Funding applications/end of award reports
Standards and re-use feedback loop
Metadata and documentation standards
Methodology sections
Single Paper
Many papers
Journal article methodology sections
The authors describe how they tested their hypotheses and how they produced their results.
Replication movement increases the standards to achieve:1. Transparency2. Rigorous review Process3. Higher quality4. Academic excellence5. Educational value6. … Replicability
Components
• Data description Dataset used Sample description Fieldwork Information Response rates Survey Methodology used
• Variable description Variables used Question wording Variable scale
Re-coding Harmonization Index building Dimension Building
Quality of the methods section
Is it replicable?
King (2003):
“Sufficient information exists with which to understand evaluate and build upon a prior work if a third party can replicate the results without any additional information from the author”
Our methodology
European Values Study • 1981• 1990• 1999• 2008
Articles:• Published with these
datasets• In peer reviewed journals• http://evs.uvt.nl• Analysis of their methods
section
EVS documentation
Wave Questionnaires Codebook (variable report)
Other documents
1981 15: Fourteen individual country questionnaires in native languages as PDF documents (some OCR readable), plus one “basic” questionnaire.
Yes • Weighting remarks
1990 30: Twenty nine individual country questionnaires in native languages as PDF documents (some OCR readable), plus one “basic” questionnaire.
Yes • Weighting remarks
1999 34: Thirty three individual country questionnaires in native languages as PDF documents (OCR readable), plus one “master” questionnaire.
Yes (8 individual country reports)
• Weighting remarks• List of Digital Object
Identifiers• Data Depositor Report
2008 48: Forty seven individual country questionnaires in native languages as PDF documents (OCR readable), plus “master” questionnaire
Yes • Weighting remarks• List of Digital Object
Identifiers• Method report• Guidelines
Referring to the data
1981 1990 1999 2008
N 8 9 9 5
Reference to the Data
8 9 9 5
Where to find 1 4 6 5
Full reference (without DOI) 0 4 5 0
Full DOI reference 0 0 0 4
Dataset Description
1981 1990 1999 2008
N 8 9 9 5
Sample description 8 3 9 5
Response Rate 2 0 1 0
Fieldwork 7 2 2 2
Missing Cases 1 0 3 5
Sample 8 3 9 5
Variable Description
1981 1990 1999 2008
N 8 9 9 5
Question phrasing 5 6 7 3
Original scales 7 5 8 5
Conclusions
• 1981 no re-use community/primary research• 1990 re-use community widens, but no
standards, hence the drop• 1999 onwards stable development of
replication and documentation standards• Clear trends in data reference• Treating the dataset as a publication