Day Nine: Data Documentation

SDS 237: Data Ethnography

Lindsay Poirier
Statistical & Data Sciences, Smith College

Fall 2023

What were some takeaways from Tuesday’s class?

How do we define metadata?

5 W’s of Metadata

Why is metadata important?

Example: Library Catalog

Metadata Schemas

• A standardized labeling system for cataloging or describing data
• Enables search engines to index data by certain criteria
• Examples:
  • Sort by “date created”
  • Retrieve all results from a specific “author/creator”
  • Filter results to a specific “subject”
  • Exclude results from a specific “publisher”

Example: Citation Manager

What’s the difference between administrative and descriptive metadata?

Data Dictionaries

• Documents for holding descriptive metadata
• Define the variables in a dataset and the values that may fill in those variables
• Are not always as descriptive as we’d like them to be

Example: NYC Metadata for All

Discussion of Final Project