Blank documentation file template
Fill in each section as described.
Do not delete any section titles or change the wording of the
template! If a section is not relevant
to your data, leave it blank. Save
the completed documentation file under the same name as the excel or
text file containing the data. Send
both the data file and the documentation file to the data manager.
TIDE Project Database
Acceptance and utilization of TIDE data requires that:
·The
Project Principal Investigator (
· The Principal Investigator of the data set be sent a copy of the report or manuscript prior to submission and be adequately cited in any resultant publications.
·A copy of any resultant publications should be sent to:
Marine Biological Laboratory
Woods
DATA FILE: Initials
of PI-Abbreviated Creek Name (see below)-data type-year (ie.
Sweeney= SW West=WE
Club=CL Nelson=NE
Sand=SA Shad=SH All creeks=ALL
DOCUMENTATION FILE:
Same name as the data file
YEAR: The year or years that the data were collected.
PI: Fill in the name of the PI responsible for the data
collection.
OTHERS: PIs, RAs or Techs who were also involved in the data
collection or compilation.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DATA FILE: Short, accurate explanation of
the data set. Be informative since this is used as the description in
the web page index.
KEYWORDS: Words that may be helpful in cross-referencing or
cataloging the data. These should be in lower case format, unless the
word is a proper name.
RESEARCH LOCATION: The name of the sampling location, latitude
and longitude if you have it. Remember to include not only the name,
but, when necessary, details and descriptions of the sampling
location.
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS AND METHODS: The description of methods should be fairly detailed and include any literature references (including author, title, journal and page numbers) pertaining to the methods.
NOTES AND COMMENTS: Notes and comments about the data can go in two different places. Those with reference to the whole data set, including explanations of any problems with data collection or the data set, or reasons for missing data should be placed in this section. Comments about individual data points will not normally be included here, but will be placed in the actual data file (see VARIABLE DESCRIPTION below).
VARIABLE DESCRIPTION:
|
Name |
Description |
Unit |
Precision |
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This section describes the variables in the data set. The
Variable Description should be a brief explanation of what the
variable name represents.
The variables Date and Comments
must be included in every data file. Comments must be
the last column in the file, and includes any additional information
about individual data points. All Comments for a data point must be
entered on a single line, which can be no longer than 250 characters.
Date should be in the format DD-MMM-YYYY (i.e.
Variables for time in Hours are to be in 24 hour format (not AM
or PM) and based on Eastern Standard Time, not Daylight Savings Time.
Entries should be 4 places, hours and minutes, without any
punctuation (examples 0458 or 2133). Individual PIs need to
responsible for making these time corrections.
Units should describe the units for the data.
Missing data shall be designated by a Missing Data Value. The
value used should be noted , i.e. BLANK, period, N/A.
CALCULATIONS: Any variables that have been calculated, along
with their corresponding formula(s).
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: List here the name and address of the PI, or person, most knowledgeable about the data set.
OTHER DATA FILES TO REFERENCE: This is a list of other files,
or work by other PIs, which you feel, may be of interest to a person
looking at this file.
REFERENCE CITATIONS: List in proper form both the published literature, and unpublished references, relating to this data set.
FORMAT OF DATA FILE: The format of the data file should be
either MS Excel (*.xls) or ASCII tab-delimited with a *.txt
extension.
ARCHIVE INFORMATION: The data manager will fill this in, noting
when the file was received and who entered it into the data base.