"Data, data, data. It's all about data!" We have chosen four articles that we would like you to read prior to the workshop in preparation for content to be covered on the first day. Each of these articles provides a perspective on research data, which will help set the stage for discussing the development and provision of data services.
The authors of these readings each contributes something to an understanding of what research data are. Whether looked upon from the perspective of structures, uses, principles, or classifications, data are deemed to hold some underlying significance or worth to research. The act of assigning significance or worth often involves implicit norms or cultural values.
As you read these articles try to identify the norms or cultural values that have shaped the authors' positions on the significance or worth of data.
This is the first chapter in the text that will be distributed at the beginning of the workshop. This reading makes a distinction between statistics and data and describes characteristics of social science data that are foundational for data services.
This article introduces new types of data with research value in the social sciences. A general societal concern about privacy, however, presents a barrier to access for many of these new data types. The author goes on to discuss five things that could help change societal views about privacy, opening the use of such data.
The authors of this paper were part of the data management oversight effort of the last IPY, which ran from 2006 to 2011. They recognized that the IPY represented a significant interdisciplinary program in its mission to study the changing nature of the planet's poles. Social science data are increasingly being sought by researchers in other domains to understand better phenomena in their own field. The authors provide a set of data principles which they feel should guide the management of data within a "science data ecosystem."
Our primary focus on this article is the section entitled, "What Are Data?" on pages 1061 to 1066. The author presents several ways of describing "data" as it is used in research. While these different ways don't provide a unified definition, they help differentiate the functions data perform in research and the variety of ways in which data are assembled for research.