Data, Data Management, & Research Process Support

data life cycle 

(The above graphic is borrowed from the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) strategic plan.  http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/)

Data Services at Carleton

Data Services works on a distributed support model. As a part of this, there are several Academic Technologists who actively support the use, management, and developing processes for research and curricular Data.  

The classic trick with data management is when to seek assistance. The short answer is this:

If you wait until you think you are ready for data support, it's probably too late.

For your best experience, data management planning needs to be integrated with your project inception, planning, and wrap-up. In short, we can be helpful to you at all stages of the process.

How to get help? 

Send an email enquiry to PLackie <at> carleton.edu or CSharpe <at> carleton.edu

  • Students, please sure to tell me if this is for a course and if so, which professor and which course (the short name is also great! eg: posc230-01-s11).  Non course related research questions are also welcome!
  • A clear subject line is always helpful for people like me (with too much email!)

Who might benefit from this kind of help?

  1. Anyone wishing to discuss options and techniques for managing their evidence/data (oh.. Excel®, it's not always your friend!)
  2. Anyone wishing to discuss options and techniques for choosing among research processes - either conducting your own or understanding the work of others. 
  3. Anyone interested in conducting a useful survey
  4. Declared majors in the social sciences or digital humanities wondering if they should get started on finding a topic for their comps... if you wait until you know what you're doing, you'll run out of time! Start with us and see what happens.
  5. 
Not sure? .. just ask!

Already have the data-bug?  Check out these interesting blogs and websites:

http://dataspora.com/blog/predictive-analytics-using-r/

http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/

http://dataspora.com/blog (from Data to Decision) Data, Analytics, and Visualization

http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/circos/ - visualizing data (especially large tables)