Academic writing and Research Data Management

Alexia Katsanidou, Uwe Jensen, Laurence Horton

GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

archive.training@gesis.org

@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