From books to bytes: A new data rescue tool. (24th April 2019)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- From books to bytes: A new data rescue tool. (24th April 2019)
- Main Title:
- From books to bytes: A new data rescue tool
- Authors:
- Slonosky, Victoria
Sieber, Renée
Burr, Gordon
Podolsky, Lori
Smith, Robert
Bartlett, Madeleine
Park, Eun
Cullen, Jeremy
Fabry, Frédéric - Abstract:
- Abstract: Historical data provides observational information crucial to our understanding of the evolution of geophysical processes. However, there is a gap between predigital age observations, which are typically handwritten, and data that is discoverable and analysable. The data rescue protocols here address this gap, covering the information lifecycle from handwritten register pages to transcription‐ready content, describing the historical data, the database design for the data rescue, and the development of an application design to transcribe the meteorological information directly from an image file to the database. The preparatory steps necessary to organize, curate, image, and structure the meteorological information, prior to transcribing the historical data, are outlined here in an integrated methodology. The initial organization, the development of an image file nomenclature to link the rescued data to the original source, and the description of a metadata schema to optimize the transcription application are all vital to the process of ensuring traceability and transparency in the data rescue process. Taken together, these steps describe best practices guidelines for similar projects. Although we designed the methodology and application to be used in any data rescue context, our particular concern was to accommodate the needs of citizen scientists. We thus focused on making our application easily maintained, flexible, direct to database, clear, and simple to use.Abstract: Historical data provides observational information crucial to our understanding of the evolution of geophysical processes. However, there is a gap between predigital age observations, which are typically handwritten, and data that is discoverable and analysable. The data rescue protocols here address this gap, covering the information lifecycle from handwritten register pages to transcription‐ready content, describing the historical data, the database design for the data rescue, and the development of an application design to transcribe the meteorological information directly from an image file to the database. The preparatory steps necessary to organize, curate, image, and structure the meteorological information, prior to transcribing the historical data, are outlined here in an integrated methodology. The initial organization, the development of an image file nomenclature to link the rescued data to the original source, and the description of a metadata schema to optimize the transcription application are all vital to the process of ensuring traceability and transparency in the data rescue process. Taken together, these steps describe best practices guidelines for similar projects. Although we designed the methodology and application to be used in any data rescue context, our particular concern was to accommodate the needs of citizen scientists. We thus focused on making our application easily maintained, flexible, direct to database, clear, and simple to use. Open Practices: This article has earned an Open Data badge for making publicly available the digitally‐shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. The data is available athttps://citsci.geog.mcgill.ca . Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science:https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki . … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Geoscience data journal. Volume 6:Number 1(2019)
- Journal:
- Geoscience data journal
- Issue:
- Volume 6:Number 1(2019)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 6, Issue 1 (2019)
- Year:
- 2019
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 1
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2019-0006-0001-0000
- Page Start:
- 58
- Page End:
- 73
- Publication Date:
- 2019-04-24
- Subjects:
- citizen science -- data rescue -- database -- historical climatology -- historical meteorology
Earth sciences -- Research -- Periodicals
Earth sciences -- Data processing -- Periodicals
Earth sciences -- Documentation -- Periodicals
550.28557 - Journal URLs:
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2049-6060 ↗
http://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2049-6060/ ↗
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1002/gdj3.62 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 2049-6060
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 10886.xml