{"id":5243,"date":"2023-02-27T10:53:58","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T16:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/?p=5243"},"modified":"2023-08-04T14:39:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T19:39:19","slug":"data-curation-adding-value-to-your-dataset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2023\/02\/27\/data-curation-adding-value-to-your-dataset\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Curation: Adding Value to Your Dataset"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You may already know that the University of Iowa\u2019s institutional repository, Iowa Research Online (IRO)<\/a>, provides both preservation and access to your dataset<\/a> for the long term. You may not know, however, that Research Data Services in the Scholarly Impact Department at the UI Libraries<\/a> also offers another key service to researchers depositing their data in IRO: data curation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the term\u202fcuration\u202f(from the Latin \u201ccare\u201d or \u201cattention\u201d) might be a practice you associate with historical artifacts or priceless paintings,\u202fdata curation<\/em>\u202fis a collaborative, value-added process that provides care and attention to a dataset. It helps make data more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When you deposit your dataset in IRO, a data librarian at the Libraries will work with you to ensure that it is as complete, understandable, and accessible as possible. Data curation is different than peer review; its purpose is to ensure that the data can be found and used, not to judge the scientific methods that went into its creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of data curation as an investment, and working with a data librarian up front can get you a great return on that investment. It gives you a dataset that\u2019s more valuable to a potential user because it\u2019s easier to find, use, and interpret. This is a service that sets IRO apart from many other repositories, most of which simply don\u2019t have the staff to offer this value-added process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depending on the specific dataset, data curation may entail:<\/p>\n\n\n\n