A monthly series of infographics on research data
Published by the Library's Research Data Services (RDS) department, the Data Literacy Series (DLS) are visually-compelling one-page handouts that break down complex and important data-related topics. DLS complement the RDS's instructional efforts and mission to promote data education and research data management practices. The handouts are distributed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. If you’d like to suggest a topic for an upcoming issue, please submit your feedback to rds@library.ucsb.edu.
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Data Documentation Initiative
The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is an international and open suite of standards expressed in XML for describing the research data produced primarily by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences, health sciences, and official statistics. DDI documents and manages different stages in the research data lifecycle to facilitate the understanding, interpretation, and use of data by people, software, and computer networks.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Documentation, Metadata, Metadata Standards
DATE: 05-2023
Ecological Metadata Language
EML is a community-maintained machine-readable metadata schema that provides a comprehensive vocabulary and XML markup syntax for documenting research data and related outputs. It is widely used in the Earth and Environmental Sciences and sibling disciplines to meet researchers' needs for sharing, preserving, discovering, and reusing data.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Documentation, Metadata, Metadata Standards, Interoperability, EML
DATE: 03-2023
The Role of Metadata Standards
High-quality metadata ensures accuracy and interoperability across systems, and the adoption of metadata standards or schemas facilitates data sharing and collaboration, making data understandable and reusable.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Documentation, Metadata, Metadata Standards, Interoperability
DATE: 02-2023
Which Graph Should You Choose?
Data visualizations are powerful tools to convey data graphically. Below, we categorize some of the commonly used types for varying communication purposes according to their primary functions.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Visualization, Graphs, Plotting Data
DATE: 01-2023
The NIH 2023 Policy At A Glance
The new NIH's Data Management and Sharing (DM&S) Policy goes into effect for grants submitted on or after January 25, 2023.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Policy, NIH, Data Sharing, Funding Agencies, Mandates
DATE: 12-2022
Compressing Files
While working with large data files, you may need to reduce their size to make them more convenient to store, transmit, and download. Let's understand the bit-rate reduction process and its types.
PDF - ALTTAGS: File Compression, File Decompression, Storage, File Size
DATE: 11-2022
Research Data Scares
To celebrate the scariest month of the year, we have compiled six eerie short data tales from the TKFDM Network.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Stories, Data Management
DATE: 10-2022
Our Data Services
Are you working on a research project or seeking to improve your data skills? The UCSB Library departments Research Data Services (RDS) and the Data, Research, Exploration, Access, and Methods (DREAM) Lab have many resources available to you.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Data Services, Data Management
DATE: 09-2022
Handling Missing Data
Real-world datasets often contain missing values, a problem not always avoidable, even in well-designed research. Missing data should be handled carefully; otherwise, they may skew your analysis and compromise your results.
PDF - ALTTAGS: Quality Control, Missing Data, Null Values
DATE: 08-2022
Cloud Services at UCSB
Cloud computing encompasses on-demand network-based computational resources and services such as servers, storage systems, databases, and productivity and analytical tools.
PDF - ALT