Harvesting research data

Acquiring research-aligned data

Dr. Jerid Francom

Feb 28, 2024

Overview

• Identifying data sources
• Acquiring data
• Documenting data

Identifying data sources

Methods

• Empirical research
• Part of the research gap

Data sources

• Repositories
• APIs

Criteria

• Data quality
• Data availability
• Data access/ usage rights
  • Creative Commons licenses
• Data format/ documentation

Acquiring data

Methods

• Manual download
• Programmatic download
• API access

R support

• download.file()
• API interfaces (e.g., tuber, rtweet, rtoot, gutenbergr, TBDBr, jstor)
• Control statements (if)
• Custom functions (function(...) { ... })

Documenting data

Methods

• Literate programming
• Research scaffold
• Data origin

R support

• (Un)Archive files (unzip(), untar())
• Data frames to disk (write_csv())
• Template for data origin (qtalrkit::create_data_origin())

Conclusion

Summary

• Acquiring data is a crucial part of the research process
  • Data is the foundation of empirical research
  • Data quality is essential
• Quarto/ R provides a variety of tools to support the acquisition and documentation of data
  • Literate programming
  • Control statements
  • Custom functions

Lab 05: Harvesting research data

Overview

• Fork, clone, and open the lab project
• Follow the instructions in the README.md file
• Submit your work to GitHub
• Notify me via Canvas with a link to your repository

References