Help:Utilising wiki as a data management system

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Mediawiki can be utilised as a data management system for research. It can be used to store, manage, edit, and analyse original data. The principles are described in brief below.

  • Original data is uploaded, text files, or other simple format to Mediawiki with a name such as Data:Filename.csv. If the data files are large, they can be stored elsewhere, and only links are used in Mediawiki.
  • Every file has a description page with a name such as Image:Data:Filename.csv. These pages are located in Image namespace. This page should contain the metadata of the data. It could have e.g. the following subheadings:
    • Study details: information about the study that produced the data.
    • Variables: Names and descriptions of each column of the data. If relevant, contains the list of all plausible values and their interpretation.
    • Log: Description of tasks done with the data.
    • Management: Code for a statistical program (such as R) to correct mistakes in the original data. This includes rationale of the changes.
  • When the management code has been run and the corrected data has been computed, it can be uploaded as a new version. The old version remains untouched.
  • Statistical code can be embedded in other pages. When run, the code calls for the newest version of the data and calculates results.

See examples: