Data documentation
A crucial part of sharing and archiving research data is ensuring that the data are easy to use and understand by other researchers.
This requires accompanying
data documentation that is user-friendly, clear and detailed yet comprehensive. Good documentation enables users to understand
and interpret archived data, ensures informed and correct secondary use and reduces the likelihood of incorrect use.
Producing good data documentation is easiest when planned from the start of and throughout the research (during the data lifecycle).
Advance planning can significantly reduce the time and money needed to prepare documentation.
For datasets archived at the UK Data Archive, data users are guided in using such data by a catalogue record, a user guide,
and a data list as the main forms of metadata and data documentation. These are produced by the UK Data Archive based on documentation
and metadata provided by data depositors. Documentation is also used to create a catalogue record for each dataset, which serves
for resource discovery and as bibliographic reference of a dataset.
Detailed information on how to create data documentation and which documentation to create is available on the UK Data Archive web pages on
data documentation and metadata.
Data documentation can be produced as:
- information embedded within a dataset itself, especially variable-level documentation
- a final report of a research project often contains the majority of contextual and methodological documentation for data
- publications, working papers, lab books
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