DATA MANAGEMENT FOR SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY a basic course

OUTLINE 1. WHAT IS DATA MANAGEMENT, AND WHY IS IT RELEVANT? I. Funding And Governance II. Personal Organisation And Skills 2. WHAT IS DATA? 3. DATA CREATION, CAPTURE AND ORGANISATION I. Introduction II. Conversion Of Data Into Different Formats III. File Formats IV. File Naming V. File Structure VI. VII. Remote Access 4. BACK-UPS

N.B. - THIS IS A P A R T I C I P A T O R Y EXERCISE!

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4 i FUNDING & GOVERNANCE: sharing & planning requirements

4 Data_Policy_2010_tcm pdf

4 ii PERSONAL ORGANIZATION & SKILLS: preserving, retrieving, reusing & analysing

BUT

7 The archive always works, a priori, against itself. Derrida, J ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.’ Diacritics 25(2): 9-63, p. 14.

8 SO LET GO ?

8 09/12/clayette1.jpg

7 We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning. Baudrillard, J Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, p. 79 DISCUSS

9 [ PROS AND CONS TIME CONSUMING; BORING; SELF- DEFEATING ANALYTICAL & PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES

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what is data? YOUR EXPECTATIONS a. FOR THE WORKSHOP AND b. FOR DATA CREATION & MANAGEMENT IN THE FIELD: WHO, WHAT, HOW...?

A PARTIAL LIST  EXPERIENCE (always understood post hoc in terms of its archiving: the psychic memory, repression, suppression of it. All-encompassing, affective, ephemeral, relational, intersubjective - impossible to capture in its complexity)  PEN-AND-PAPER NOTES on experience(s)  OTHER, NON-DIGITAL ARTEFACTS (including also brochures, fliers,...potentially endless list)  PHOTOS/VIDEOS (analogue and digital, taken by you or by others)  TYPED-UP NOTES  PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE ( s, letters, text messages, recorded phone calls…, many formats, both analogue and digital)  REPORTS (to supervisor, funding bodies…again in various formats, presumably digital?) and feedback on them and other bits of writing  INTERVIEWS, SEMINARS, CONFERENCES, AND FOCUS-GROUP DISCUSSIONS (notes, recordings, memory…)  STATISTICAL DATA (analogue and digital, one’s own or created by others, e.g. datasets)  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA AND NOTES (A&D)  ARCHIVAL DATA (A&D)  MAPS AND DRAWINGS (A&D)  S, MAILING LISTS, BLOGS, WEBSITES of various kinds  INDEX CARDS (e.g. for language/kinship data...)  …ELUSIVE! You might not realise what counts as data until after you have collected it  …

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‘I don’t like reading my diaries, I don’t want to go back to them, it’s a bit like hearing my voice recorded. But I also know I have really nice stuff in there that I could go back to and recycle…’

15 I MEMORY TRAINING

ARCHIVE & CONVERT ON-THE-GO

analogue & digital 2MAyMngOI/AAAAAAAAANE/eYsOwG8WfV U/s1600-h/Nelson,+Ted+cl-cover7a.jpg

what difference does it make ?

II conversion

BRAINSTORM

analogue to digital: TAKE PICTURES !

DIGITAL RECORDING: Recording Time Data Storage Recording Features Connectivity Transcription Features

TRANSCR[PTiON is it necessary? when? which software? take notes assistants: confidentiality, context, conventions and guidelines, pay and acknowledgement

T R A N S L A T I O N keep originals!

FILE FORMATS: choose open source/standard for - PRESERVATION -EXTRACTION - ACCESSIBILITY -CONSISTENCY

a- archive.ac.uk/cr eate- manage/format /formats-table

FILE NAMES S I M PLI C IT Y CLARITY CONSISTENCY DOCUMENTATION

FILE STRUCTURE SELECTION CONSISTENCY SIMPLICITY

keep it in check

[remote] ACCESS Institutional networked storage Virtual learning/research environments Online storage and backup service (‘cloud computing’)

your experience

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52 BACKUP: multiple copies different media & formats back-up, select, and test the system regularly

55 OPTIONS (a partial list): External hard- drives Online storage PWF, Camtools USB sticks CD-roms and DVDs Photocopies and printouts digital pictures/scans …