CREATE & MANAGE DATA
DOCUMENTING YOUR DATA
DATA LEVEL / OVERVIEW
Data documentation can be embedded in data, such as variable and code descriptions in databases or headers in a interview transcript. Alternatively, information about data items can be recorded in a structured document.
Documenting data at the data level includes:
- names, labels and descriptions for variables, records and their values
- explanation of codes and classification schemes used
- codes of, and reasons for, missing values
- derived data created after collection, with code, algorithm or command file used to create them
- weighting and grossing variables created and how they should be used
- data list describing cases, individuals or items studied, for example for logging qualitative interviews
Other documentation may be contained in user guides, reports,
publications, working papers and laboratory books. The other pages
in this section provide more detailed examples of data and file
documentation, and provide examples for structured numeric data and
for qualitative data.
The Archive's in-house data processing procedures show how we
process and create documentation to accompany each archived data
collection.
