Title: Data management for primary data
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Beyond data collection and analysis

Data management for primary data

In the context of conducting surveys, data management is concerned with the organisation and documentation of data and data depositing. There are a number of reasons why good data management is very important.

- Firstly, good data management is important in ensuring the quality of the original research. Good data management should help create high quality data which is vital to produce high quality research.

- Secondly, good data management allows the data we have collected to be shared and reused. Data sharing is an increasingly important part of the research process for a number of reasons. As we have seen, the survey process is extremely expensive and time consuming, and it is therefore increasingly important that we get the most out of publicly funded data collection. Data sharing does so by allowing data to be reused in a variety of ways. Data can be reused for secondary analysis to replicate and scrutinise existing research findings, thereby encouraging transparency in the research process and promoting improvement and validation of research methods. Alternatively, secondary analysis allows new research to be conducted using existing data and avoids the costs of producing duplicate data. The process of data sharing also promotes the use of data amongst new users and can lead to new research collaborations between those who created the data and secondary users. Finally, data sharing can produce valuable educational resources.