Social Research Methodology and Supplementary Documentation John Kallas University of the Aegean, Department of Sociology

Documentation Open access depends on documentation Documentation is realized by two different documentation procedures the procedure of document production the procedure of document integration in a documentation system. Document production is the work of data producers Social research products are different types of documents (Text documents, metadata documents, data documents etc) In every research a number of documents is produced Document integration is the work of data providers To understand documentation as a document integration procedure an infrastructure is needed

The General Research Procedure The survey The transformation of an individual’s abstract internal mental representation of social phenomena into formalized information; The choice of descriptive variables used to characterize each of the individuals of the population examined; The choice of individuals who constitute the population examined The coding or recoding of the initial data characterizing each individual by the descriptive variables The analysis The methods of analysis employed to treat and to transform the data in order to furnish formal and often statistical results; The final transformation by the researcher of formal mathematical results into the final results that are presented in a public discourse or in a scientific text

The one phase methodological paradigm The survey and the analysis are elements of the same research procedure The survey and the analysis share a common design The survey and the analysis are realized by the same research team

Research product life cycle under the one phase methodological paradigm

Research product life cycle supported by infrastructure

The two phase methodological paradigm The survey and the analysis are elements of two different research procedures The survey and the analysis don’t always share a common design The survey and the analysis are realized by different research teams Both Documentation procedures are realized by different research team Document production also depends on infrastructures

The general research procedure under the two phase paradigm

The General Research Procedure The Primary Production Design Data collection The Secondary Production Redesign Dataset Integration Analysis Result presentation The Database System Archiving Data dissemination Data and metadata retrieval

Research product life cycle under the two phase methodological paradigm

Changes in Data Production Data production in the context of a study Data modeling is based on the statistical ontology Units of observation are elements of a subject matter schema designed in the context of the study Data production in the context of a subject matter field Data modeling is based on the statistical ontology and on a subject matter ontology Units of observation are elements of a subject matter ontology A subject matter ontology is not designed in the context of a specific study

Supplementary Documentation References and Citations A document refers to one or more existing studies A document is referenced by one or more existing studies Variable and Object of observation standardization A data element (a variable, or an object of observation) is referenced by one or more existing studies Build subject matter ontologies independent from a specific research project Use Data as Metadata (context data) Focus on differences as well as on similarities Supplementary documentation depends on infrastructures

The conceptual metadata model Data production is based on conceptual metadata model It is distributed in a number of independed research teams using a Grid of Research Infrastructures The Metadata model is The metadata model Models the semantics of an empirical research Models the semantics of a subject matter field and this is independent from the functionality of any application Models the administrational parameters which depends on the functionality of the applications Models the classification systems accepted by a community

Conclusions Metadata are produced in all the different steps of the lifecycle. In many cases metadata are part of the infrastructure and are used as tools for production Infrastructure development must be based on a conceptual data model. Research methodology affects the development of infrastructure