Crystal Lewis

RDM Weekly - Issue 034 A weekly roundup of Research Data Management resources.

Issue 34 of #rdmweekly is out! 📬

➡️ Updated Elements of an NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan
➡️ Making Code Ready for Publication @tladeras.bsky.social
➡️10 Things for Curating Reproducible and FAIR Research @researchdataall.bsky.social
and more!

rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...

RDM Weekly - Issue 034 A weekly roundup of Research Data Management resources.

Issue 34 of #rdmweekly is out! 📬

➡️ Updated Elements of an NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan
➡️ Making Code Ready for Publication @tladeras.bsky.social
➡️10 Things for Curating Reproducible and FAIR Research @researchdataall.bsky.social
and more!

rdmweekly.substack.com/p/rdm-weekly...

I came across this platform that might be of interest to ed researchers.

"A community-powered platform that helps educators, families, researchers, and leaders compare what's working (and what isn't) across real settings — and connect practice to credible evidence."

educationanswers.org/help.html

My neighborhood news.

🐉Hey there to all my 5 followers! UAB is seeking a Systematic Review Librarian. Come work with me!! Learn more and apply here: uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/27128 #medlibs

It is NEVER too late to make a data dictionary. Sometimes it’s the only way to start working with an existing data set.

Maybe this question was designed for you then. 😅

😂 Seriously! I was like, I don't know how to answer this question?

a cartoon character with orange hair has the words hmmmm on his head ALT: a cartoon character with orange hair has the words hmmmm on his head

Duo Mobile:
"Are you enjoying Duo Mobile?"

Am I enjoying an authentication app? Such a strange question.

😂

😂🥰

Template: osf.io/e5g6t/files/...

The data dictionary: A simple but effective way to plan, organize, validate, and document your data.

datamgmtinedresearch.com/document#doc...

“I don’t like tibbles”, “pipes are overrated”, “loops are great actually”, … what’s next? Ah yes — the R contrarian character arc 😄 If we continue the escalation, the next stages usually look like: • “Actually, base R plotting is more transparent.” • “data.table was right all along.” • “I write my own S3 methods for fun.” • “Vectorization is just premature optimization avoidance.” • “apply() is perfectly readable.” • “Why depend on 40 packages for a left join?” • “I don’t trust NSE.” • “Magrittr changed evaluation semantics and nobody talks about it.” • “One well-written for-loop beats clever code.” • “I opened the tidyverse source code once and never recovered.”

Planning my next conversation starter

Keep an eye on it. The template is still a draft. :)

@cghlewis.bsky.social do you have any recommendations for lightweight data dictionaries? I'm thinking about how you record the knowledge you build up over the course of analysis, particularly when the data comes to you only partially documented.

💯

While it does reduce burden on applicants, I’m not sure this checkbox model prepares anyone for actual data sharing.
Here is a draft, awaiting OMB clearance:
grants.nih.gov/sites/defaul...

This is a dramatic update to the NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan template, effective for applications submitted for due dates on or after May 25, 2026.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

🎶 Here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I’ve ever known 🎶

That’s it :)

There’s a lot of R packages that make codebooks from existing data. I just need something that I can create before data is collected. cghlewis.github.io/rladies-nyc-...

Chapter 8 Documentation | Data Management in Large-Scale Education Research Figure 8.1: Documentation in the research project life cycle. Documentation is a collection of files containing procedural and descriptive information about your team, project, workflows, and...

Also, here is where I wrote about how I create data dictionaries.
Section 8.4.1
Probably more information than you wanted. 😅
datamgmtinedresearch.com/document

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

This starts to get there but I don’t think it fits the human readable piece and I’m not sure it has all the field options I’d want. But frictionless data packages might?

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

But I’ve definitely been thinking about other ways to create a data dictionary (for spreadsheets) before or after you collect data that documents information in both a human and machine readable way using a standard metadata schema. That can then be used to both understand and validate data.

😂 You got it!
The first tab is a template, the second tab is an example. I keep the columns pretty flexible (adding fields as needed or removing ones that are not needed).

osf.io/e5g6t/files/...

But also I’ve heard good things about frictionless data packages.

Hey, sorry I’ve been a little off the grid. I’m not sure you’re going to love my solution. After doing some detective work, I usually just manually create a data dictionary in Excel to document all the logic that I uncover.

I haven’t heard one word about AI since I’ve been in Costa Rica and it’s been amazing.

Live coding TidyTuesday. Join us with Hadley Wickham, Tues, Feb 17 at 12pm ET, pos.it/dslab

Join us in a few hours to watch Hadley Wickham live code!

Featuring data from the TidyTuesday project, the new Posit AI in RStudio, and lots of good times. #RStats

Sign up here: pos.it/dslab