Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata

Research data are often released upon journal publication to enable result verification and reproducibility. For that reason, research dissemination infrastructures typically support diverse datasets coming from numerous disciplines, from tabular data and program code to audio-visual files. Metadata...

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Main Author: Ana Trisovic
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Edinburgh 2023-02-01
Series:International Journal of Digital Curation
Online Access:http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/833
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author Ana Trisovic
author_facet Ana Trisovic
author_sort Ana Trisovic
collection DOAJ
description Research data are often released upon journal publication to enable result verification and reproducibility. For that reason, research dissemination infrastructures typically support diverse datasets coming from numerous disciplines, from tabular data and program code to audio-visual files. Metadata, or data about data, is critical to making research outputs adequately documented and FAIR. Aiming to contribute to the discussions on the development of metadata for research outputs, I conducted an exploratory analysis to determine how research datasets cluster based on what researchers organically deposit together. I use the content of over 40,000 datasets from the Harvard Dataverse research data repository as my sample for the cluster analysis. I find that the majority of the clusters are formed by single-type datasets, while in the rest of the sample, no meaningful clusters can be identified. For the result interpretation, I use the metadata standard employed by DataCite, a leading organization for documenting a scholarly record, and map existing resource types to my results. About 65% of the sample can be described with a single-type metadata (such as Dataset, Software orReport), while the rest would require aggregate metadata types. Though DataCite supports an aggregate type such as a Collection, I argue that a significant number of datasets, in particular those containing both data and code files (about 20% of the sample), would be more accurately described as a Replication resource metadata type. Such resource type would be particularly useful in facilitating research reproducibility.
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spelling doaj.art-97797ad3b3724ea0a1432c9573ec8e762023-02-03T01:02:43ZengUniversity of EdinburghInternational Journal of Digital Curation1746-82562023-02-0117110.2218/ijdc.v17i1.833Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication MetadataAna Trisovic0Harvard UniversityResearch data are often released upon journal publication to enable result verification and reproducibility. For that reason, research dissemination infrastructures typically support diverse datasets coming from numerous disciplines, from tabular data and program code to audio-visual files. Metadata, or data about data, is critical to making research outputs adequately documented and FAIR. Aiming to contribute to the discussions on the development of metadata for research outputs, I conducted an exploratory analysis to determine how research datasets cluster based on what researchers organically deposit together. I use the content of over 40,000 datasets from the Harvard Dataverse research data repository as my sample for the cluster analysis. I find that the majority of the clusters are formed by single-type datasets, while in the rest of the sample, no meaningful clusters can be identified. For the result interpretation, I use the metadata standard employed by DataCite, a leading organization for documenting a scholarly record, and map existing resource types to my results. About 65% of the sample can be described with a single-type metadata (such as Dataset, Software orReport), while the rest would require aggregate metadata types. Though DataCite supports an aggregate type such as a Collection, I argue that a significant number of datasets, in particular those containing both data and code files (about 20% of the sample), would be more accurately described as a Replication resource metadata type. Such resource type would be particularly useful in facilitating research reproducibility. http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/833
spellingShingle Ana Trisovic
Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata
International Journal of Digital Curation
title Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata
title_full Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata
title_fullStr Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata
title_full_unstemmed Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata
title_short Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata
title_sort cluster analysis of open research data a case for replication metadata
url http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/833
work_keys_str_mv AT anatrisovic clusteranalysisofopenresearchdataacaseforreplicationmetadata