Improving Metadata Infrastructure for Complex Surveys: Insights from the Fragile Families Challenge.
Improving Metadata Infrastructure for Complex Surveys: Insights from the Fragile Families Challenge.
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DOI：
10.1177/2378023118817378
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发表时间：
2019-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
Salganik, Matthew J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kindel, Alexander T;Bansal, Vineet;Catena, Kristin D;Hartshorne, Thomas H;Jaeger, Kate;Koffman, Dawn;McLanahan, Sara;Phillips, Maya;Rouhani, Shiva;Vinh, Ryan;Salganik, Matthew J
研究人员依靠元数据系统来准备数据进行分析。随着数据集复杂性的增加和数据分析做法的广度的扩大，现有的元数据系统可能会限制数据编制的效率和质量。本文介绍了一个元数据系统的重新设计，支持脆弱家庭和儿童福利研究的基础上，参与者的经验，在脆弱家庭的挑战。作者演示了如何将元数据视为数据（即，以适合自动化和人工处理的格式发布关于变量的全面信息）可以使数据准备任务不那么艰巨，并且对于所有类型的数据分析来说不太容易出错。作者希望他们的工作将促进机器学习方法在纵向调查中的新应用，并激发社会科学中数据准备的研究。作者将他们创建的工具开源，以便其他人可以使用和改进它们。
Researchers rely on metadata systems to prepare data for analysis. As the complexity of data sets increases and the breadth of data analysis practices grow, existing metadata systems can limit the efficiency and quality of data preparation. This article describes the redesign of a metadata system supporting the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study on the basis of the experiences of participants in the Fragile Families Challenge. The authors demonstrate how treating metadata as data (i.e., releasing comprehensive information about variables in a format amenable to both automated and manual processing) can make the task of data preparation less arduous and less error prone for all types of data analysis. The authors hope that their work will facilitate new applications of machine-learning methods to longitudinal surveys and inspire research on data preparation in the social sciences. The authors have open-sourced the tools they created so that others can use and improve them.