Key Concepts
This pertains to who maintains legal rights to the data and retains the data after the project is completed.
What is data ownership
A collection of facts, measurements, or observations used to make inferences about the world
What is data
You may use different methods of analysis depending on what question you want to answer
What is TRUE. Different methods of analysis can offer different insights into the data
The minimum amount of time that the USDHHS requires data be retained after the funding period ends.
What is three years
The graduate student in your lab is walking you through data analysis, and you notice they’re only including data that fits their hypothesis. They are committing this type of data mismanagement
What is data cooking
This refers to the length of time data should be kept after the end of a project by the owner
What is data retention
This term refers to the entity that oversees, supports, and assumes the ultimate financial and academic responsibility for raw data
What is the sponsoring institution
Ensuring validity and reliability of data are equally important during data collection
What is TRUE. Data collection that adheres to these rules, researchers can assess and replicate their result
For data collection involving human participants or vertebrates, this institutional department must give approval first
What is IRB (Institutional Review Board)
Dr. Example works at The University and was awarded a NSF grant for a research project. She is the Principle Investigator of the research lab, and she has employed an undergraduate student to do most of the wet lab work and a research director to oversee the day-to-day aspects of the project. This person owns the project and the data associated with it.
What is The University (Generally the sponsoring institution, in this case The University, owns the data)
This term refers to how and what data is recorded as well as how a research project is designed
What is data collection
Making up data or reporting experiments that never happened
What is forgery (or fabrication)
Amending or excluding data is never appropriate in science
What is FALSE. Sometimes data may be excluded after instrument problems or malfunctions, loss of or change in subjects or specimens, or any other interruptions or deviations in procedure
This institutional department is responsible for data and information regarding patents, licensing, and compliance with sponsor requirements
Intellectual Property Office
You are a researcher studying human genetics at a university. You have a set of samples in a freezer, and your colleague asks to take some DNA from them as a control for a different project. Your response is:
What is NO! Not until you get consent from these people to use their DNA for a different project.
This pertains to how raw data are chosen, evaluated, and interpreted into meaningful and significant conclusions that people can understand
What is data analysis
Unreasonable smoothing or irregularities or exclusion of outliers to make the data look more accurate
What is data trimming
Statistical significance is the only determination of significant analysis that matters in publication
What is FALSE. Sometimes other determinations are applicable, like clinical significance
Online data can be protected through these three precautions
What are limiting access, protecting your system, and protecting data integrity
You and your research partner are presenting data at a conference that is part of a larger project. You were unable to determine a statistically significant difference between the control and experimental groups, but when graphed the data look visually different. Should you say there was a difference in the groups when presenting?
What is NO! Though the data may look different, if you were unable to establish a statistically significant difference, there is no functional difference between the data.
This pertains to the publication of findings after the project is completed
What is data reporting
The three general data categories to which retention requirements apply
What is research, financial, and administrative data
You should always share data as soon as you get it to encourage scientific collaboration
What is FALSE. There is no obligation to share data before publication, and often it is discouraged, as the implications of the data may not be as well understood.
This law passed in 1980 allows universities to control intellectual property generated from federally-funded research by researchers employed by the institution
The Bayh-Dole Act
You are creating a predictive model for tree growth. One of your teammates suggests testing the model’s accuracy on dataset A, which you used to train the model. Another teammate suggests testing the model on dataset B, which has never been introduced to the model. The dataset you should use is…
What is dataset B. To ensure the best evaluation of the model, test it on a new dataset.