
Writing a data management plan: What are Research data?
Research data can also be regarded as situational in that the same digital information or materials may be research data for some people but not others. Likewise, the same information may be research data for a person at one time point, but not data at another time point, depending on whether that person uses that information or material for analysis.
For example:
- A photographic image of an old municipal building in a historical archive is an archived image in an image bank. But when used by a researcher to study the history of a city, the photographic image becomes data for that researcher.
- CCTV footage may be archived (or destroyed) by a security firm. However when used by a researcher to study human behaviour or 21st century surveillance mehods, the video footage becomes data for that researcher.
Thus research data are very much about when they are used as well as what they constitute and the purpose for which they are to be used.
Data can also be created by researchers for one purpose and used by another set of researchers at a later date for a completely different research agenda.