Penny’s Discoveries @ Murdoch

The importance of (good) data management

I know, I know. It’s important to be organised during any project whether it be home renovations, cooking a lamb roast, going to a concert, or conducting fieldwork for research. It will go a lot more smoothly (and be more useful) if you plan, conduct and keep it organized as you go.

I didn’t do this very well during my fieldwork. I was observing classes, interviewing and recording teachers, taking videos and photos, collecting documents, etc. etc. and then dumping this data into the “in tray” or the “to do” tray (where “tray” might also be a folder on my desktop). So now I’m having to revisit all of my data, figure out what it is (oh how I wish I had labeled all those video tapes!!), make it digital (if it’s not already), and then archive it meaningfully.

The upside of doing it all at once is that my taxonomy (folksonomy?) is relatively consistent in my archiving. The downside? There’s just so much of it to do. I fully intended to do it as I went along, but just didn’t. There was the potential to be blogging from my iPhone, but I didn’t do this very much. There was also the potential to upload fieldnotes and photos as soon as I downloaded them to my computer, but I didn’t do this very much either. This was mainly due to not having my archive set up (properly) in advance (and, indeed, the “front end” is still not set up) and being flat-out with the act of fieldwork itself. I didn’t factor in the time for data management very effectively.

And so, in revising the Action Reflection Cycle, I would highlight the importance of recording - recording the data, recording initial thoughts/reflections about those data, and labeling (tagging) as you go. I have adapted the “typical” action reflection cycle (below) to highlight this. I consider “observe” to be very important, but in my research, observation has very much been a part of the “act” stage of the cycle.

The Action Reflection Cycle (Image from CELT (2003) http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm)

My revised version of the Action Reflection Cycle. (Image adapted from CELT (2003) http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm)

In planning, acting, recording and reflecting by writing this blog post, it occurs to me that perhaps the “record” part should be added to every stage of the cycle, and not be seen as separate. The construction of an “audit trail” is oh-so-important when undertaking doctoral studies (because I’m constructing a thesis) and so shouldn’t every stage be recorded? But when do you stop? When is enough data enough?

My discovery? It pays not to be lazy. And not to procrastinate about data management. It also makes me fully appreciate the work of librarians! I am very much looking forward to my next “round” of fieldwork in which I will archive-as-I-go, and see if I can achieve digital zen.