The most important topic you didn’t know you needed: Data Modelling and Design

Imagine a spreadsheet column for recording participant names. Should you have two columns instead, so you can sort by last name? What about middle name? Is this useful for your research? Names also include titles such as Dr and Prof. Is storing this fact separately helpful? What about aliases and nicknames, are they names? What about more complicated examples such as addresses, tweets, interview transcripts, social networks? Waaaaa!

Data modelling is a process you can undertake to help answer these questions. Data modelling is the fundamental building block on which quality big-data, meta-data and data-bases all rest. It is about working through what you need to record, how you need to store it and to what ends. The ontological decisions you make during data modelling are often fundamentally linked with the underlying theories of your research!

In this workshop we’ll cover the fundamentals of data modelling for humanities and social sciences research. We’ll also conduct some data modelling task with willing volunteers from the audience!

Presenter: Dr Mitchell Harrop.

Dr Mitchell Harrop is an Humanities and Social Sciences Informatics Specialist. Mitchell works for the Social and Cultural Informatics Platform (SCIP) at the University of Melbourne.

Location detail: Digital Studio, Level 3 via the lifts in the rear foyer the West Wing of Arts West..