Data descriptions

(metadata, “data about data”)

Question 5
How and where will you describe each of your research datasets, so that someone else can understand what the data are about?

Possible responses:

The only description will be the filenames on my hard drive.

The only description will be the column and row labels in my spreadsheets.

The data will be described in handwritten notes in my lab notebook.

I will save metadata describing the data files in electronic form.

  

Links to university information, policies and support should be shown.

This information can be used to discuss and inform the researcher on best practice and recommended schemes.

Question 6
How will descriptive metadata be created or captured?

Possible responses:

Instrument metadata are automatically included in each data file.

The only metadata will be the title and short textual description that I will manually complete in the Web submission form, when depositing each dataset in my university’s data repository.

My data descriptions will be saved in spreadsheets or word processor documents.Rich metadata conforming to a Minimal Information Standard appropriate to my research field will be recorded at the time of data acquisition, using a metadata entry form, and will thus be available as a metadata file to accompany my datasets during submission of the data to a data repository.

Links to university information, standards and data support should be shown

This information is really important and can be used to discuss and inform the researcher on improved ways, systems or solutions which might offer a standardised, compatible approach to creating and using data descriptions.