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Fall Semester '21: My Data Management Journey

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Fall Semester '21: My Data Management Journey

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Prior to this semester, I did not take my data management skills very seriously. My organizational skills have been lacking throughout university and this can be seen through my data management, my room (I can never find the things I need), and in other areas. In the spirit of approaching this reflection with true honesty, there are still areas in need of improvement; namely, tackling the organization of my room. However, the skills I learned in PSYC 394 through lecture and the Perusall reading from Heather VanMouwerik (2016) were valuable as I transformed my data management practices.

While tackling my most important files (academics and work-related) took a couple of hours initially, the time was worth it as it saved me the additional time later in the semester when I needed to find files. I no longer had to search for 10-20 minutes to find a file that may or may not be located in my Downloads. Instead, I was able to access my files through a clean and easy to navigate pathway from my desktop to various folders assigned to different subjects.

I found it easiest to adopt the strong file naming and cataloguing conventions and this quickly reduced the feelings of overwhelm I used to have when looking at my desktop (see below for "organizational paralysis"). It was also easier to backup my files in 3 different locations (Computer harddrive, OneDrive, Time Machine), though this was a habit that grew with time. The most difficult data management strategy to adapt was documentation, though this has more to do with time than difficulty. I have notes on version histories and edits in my OneNote file for my thesis research, though I would like to consolidate all of these into one file to put in my thesis folder.

Overall, adopting excellent data management practices isn't hard, but it does take practice to get into the routine of organizing data and ensuring everything is backed up and documented properly. I anticipate that these routines will be strengthened with time!

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The Perusall article by Heather VanMouwerik (2016) discussed her struggles with organizational paralysis, a term that definitely reflects my challenges with organization in my data management practices and beyond! She states: "I was so paralyzed by the sheer volume and diversity of material I needed to store on my one laptop- from dissertation research, grant applications, and Ph.D exam notes, to my recipes, vacation photos, and tax documents- that I did not organize anything at all."

This has been my experience. Whether it comes to cleaning my inbox, my room, or my desktop, I frequently feel overwhelmed by mess but feel like I lack the ability to address the mess without overwhelming myself even more, especially with many other demands taking up my time. As a result, I tend to avoid messes and let them build up, which is even worse! This article made me feel seen in my struggles with organization and also provided tools that helped me to begin organizing my data and combat the feeling of overwhelm. I am including it here as the aforementioned passage resonated with me and helps to frame my data management reflection.

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The worst case scenario: total system failure. I have experienced this! In third year, my laptop unfortunately perished unexpected, leaving me without many of my files in the middle of the semester. To date, I have not recovered most of those files and they are sitting in some kind of liminal space on my dead MacBook. However, this experience definitely taught me the importance of backing up my files. I currently backup my files using OneDrive, as it is provided for free by the university. Out of an abundance of caution, I have recently backed up my thesis files to Time Machine as well because the thought of losing my thesis work terrifies me. I definitely feel a greater sense of security with my files stored in 3 separate locations, though I know that I can still improve my backups by transferring more of my academic work and important files like letters of reference to both the Cloud and Time Machine. If my laptop were to fail again, at least I would be able to access anything I may need through a different source (something I've wished I could do many times over the last three years with some of my writing that's stuck on my dead laptop!)

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Transferring my skills to other areas of my life

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Transferring my skills to other areas of my life

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I think that my data management skills can be transferred to other areas of my life, particularly organization of my inbox, room, and even social media. The "Giant File Box" concept by VanMouwerik works well for me and can be adjusted for other areas of my life. For example, it is easiest for me to get started on cleaning my room if I get everything off of the floor and into a big bin and/or on my bed. Once it is all in one location, it is easier for me to divide items and sort into other bins based on similarities (ie. putting all shorts together, workout clothes together). This makes it easier for me to locate things later on based on what particular item of clothing I am looking for. Although I know it will be time consuming, I would also like to use the Giant File Box strategy to tackle my emails. I often miss important emails because I am plagued by mailing lists and listserv emails. I can create files within my inbox to divide my StFX emails, for instance, between soccer, academics, work (divided by Visible @ X, McKenna Centre work, and Sports Journalism), and then general emails. It will be much easier for me to locate important emails later on instead of using my current strategy of flagging important emails for follow-up and just hoping that I will remember to reply/be able to find them again.

Interestingly, I have used more organizational strategies with social media use as well. For posts that I save on Instagram (ie. recipes, workouts), I created separate folders based on the content (examples include "ACL rehab" and "Recipes") so that I can easily find posts at a later time rather than sifting through hundreds of posts with no organization.

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Going forwards, I intend to continue with excellent data management practices, while recognizing that I still have room for improvement. I have not yet had much experience with data cleaning, though I anticipate this will come once I begin to perform statistical analyses for my thesis research next semester. To date, the only practice I have had with data cleaning has been through the lab where we practiced Winsorizing data. I feel that through the lab and lecture, I have the skills to clean data, I just need to practice them further.

For context, my desktop used to be entirely filled with screenshots and random files with questionable or confusing names, few of which were sorted into folders. Within my folders, files were stored with no sense of organization beyond being in a folder indicating which course the files were for. Although it took a significant chunk of time to start practicing strong data management skills, it was less time consuming to maintain once I had the appropriate folders and organization in place. Luckily, I began to reorganize my files early in the semester when I had more time on my hands.

One data management skill I still need to work on is documentation. My plan for the holidays is to create documentation, possibly through a README file, to track changes with my thesis research. I think this will be especially helpful when it comes to tracking version history of my data analysis and also keeping track of any potential data cleaning. I also need to continue to remember to backup my work to Time Machine, as I sometimes forget. I would also like to create universal naming conventions for all of my academic files. While the names of my files tend to reflect the content and are easily understood, I like the naming conventions for PSYC 394 labs and would like to implement a version of this to record version histories and keep things the same across all files (ex. Thesis_Survey_V3).

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To keep track of my many thesis files, I divided the files into categories. My "Thesis" folder, found inside the "Psychology" folder, includes folders for my Ethics Application, Proposal, Literature Review, Memos, and Survey. As I have multiple versions of my survey with different edits either incorporated or in need of being addressed, I kept my file titles simple by indicating that they were copies of my thesis survey and the version number. It is also much easier to keep my thesis files organized by breaking each section into different folders! I think that I could further strengthen these by also including the date of each version. This will become more important as I amass more files and version histories with my thesis.

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This is an example of some of my naming conventions for files. I have copied this format with other files, including those for my thesis, to ensure that I am able to find the files I need and keep track of version history/date edited. Other naming conventions include the title of the assignment along with the version history (see above: "Example of Thesis Survey Versions").

If I theoretically lost the ability to be able to explain my files, I believe that other people would be able to understand what the content of the files was. Especially now that they are organized based on subject, then course, followed by specific areas in the course (for example, lab work and choice assignments as separate folders), it should be relatively simple for others to read my file titles and understand what they are. With that being said, I still have work to do in consolidating ALL of my laptop files. In previous years, I definitely saved files with non-descriptive titles that made it difficult to know what the files were or where to find them. As I continue to address my data management practices, I hope to fully clean my files beyond academics and work to make accessing files a breeze.

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As a TA for PSYC 101, I am using data management strategies to assist in marking 125 student papers. I have divided the files into two folders. As I download papers and track changes in Microsoft Word, I can change the file title to LastName_FirstName_MARKED and change the file location to "Marked Assignments." This makes it easier to keep track of which assignments have been marked and which students they belong to. In this case, I have not been backing the assignments up to the Cloud (I figured I should not if it is not my work, but perhaps I'm wrong?), but I have uploaded the feedback files to Moodle as soon as possible. One area I plan to research on my own is how to manage privacy with data storage. This is something I have thought about as I mark the work of students and I want to ensure that I am following best practices to handle student files privately.

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Example of current data management strategy. Pathway from desktop to PSYC 394 Lab folder, utilizing organizational strategies.