In my last post OAC and Historical Ag Data – has the 150 year old mystery been solved?  I ended with a couple of highlighted statements made by the Wm. Johnston, who was the rector/president of OAC back in the early years (1874-1879):

• conduct experiments and publish the results
• lay his hands upon our results and follow them if desirable

How many of you saw Research Data Management at play here??  Oh it yelled documentation to me too!   Obtain results and follow them if desirable – how do you do this without documentation????

Back in 1876, Wm Johnston had the foresight to set out what he called a code of action for any trials that were conducted on the Experimental Farm.  As I read through these I see a number of corollaries to today’s research processes – setting out a research question, ensuring you look at the results in context of the trial, documentation, and the practicality of running trials on a working farm!   I find it funny how this code of action was put in place back in 1876 and yet we are still teaching some of these basics today.  For reference here is the code of action items that relate to both livestock and field experiments:

1. All principles must be laid down by facts of practice and science
2. If a principle seems wanting, we may have to establish one
3. To ascertain the exact state of information regarding any contemplated experiment – repetition might be useless
4. To select the subject of enquiry
5. The solving of a definite question, whether affirmative or negative
6. Whether the subject is practical or economical, of both combined
7. The arrangement of a definite plan of operations – the form in which the enquiry should be prosecuted
8. Uniformity of treatment
9. Duplicates indispensable

There are 8 more relevant if you are embarking on an experiment where you are feeding animals.  These include items such as:  previous treatment and present condition, periodical weighing; character of housing and temperature, the greatest result in the least time, at the least cost, and four more…  Additional field experiment principles include: uniformity of soil and exposure, analysis of soil and manures, all useless and misleading without minuteness, the result of one experiment suggesting another, and twelve more…  It is suggested that all these principles be observed and documented – WOW!!!

As I continue to review the experiments and data available from the initial years of what we now know as OAC –  I see that we also have/had a strong history in research management and yes I’m going to extend that to research data management.  The information – data at that time – is included in these publications – albeit Annual Reports – but all the information – data – is there!!

In the early years – before any requests came in for specific experiments on farm, feeding trials for the pigs and cattle were predominant – as were cropping/planting trials on the site.  There are tables and images of alot of these trials in the Annual Report.  I have only read the first 4 years and I am VERY impressed with the “data” and information on these trials.

So now the question that begs to be asked – now what?  How much data did I find?  What is the value of this data?   Is it only valuable to the data geeks?  What if I told you there were crude weather reports and data included in some of these reports?   Would that change your mind regarding the value of this information?

Something to ponder…. Till the next time,

Ah yes I’m on a roll with the historical data.  Many of you have heard me ask “Where is the data?”  If we have been conducting research or experiments for over 150 years here in Ontario – what do we have to show for it?  As Data stewards – what happened?   Where has that data gone?  Yes I’ve talked about this in a variety of posts – the first one back in 2023:

Historical Data – Where is it?

As I prepare a few presentations for later this year, I’ve been asking myself this question: “If I don’t know the data ever existed – did it exist?”  Similar to the saying:  “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  I think we all know the “true” answer to that age old question – of course it makes a sound.  To me – of course there was data to match experiments conducted 150+ years ago – it is just lost?

Can you sense that I found something 🙂  I’ve been reading the OAC Reviews and stumbled across a mention of the Annual Reports of the Ontario School of Agriculture and Experimental Farm.  Yup!!!  I found the very first report written by Wm. Johnston to the Commissioner of Agriculture on November 16, 1874 talking about the installation of the school – which is now known the Ontario Agricultural College.  What a find!!!  So – apart from the fascination of our history, including exams, list of students, finances, cropping reports, livestock inventories, etc…  it was made clear from the first day that there would indeed be experiments on the farm:

“… in the first place, teach to the succeeding, if not the present generation, the most improved methods of cultivation—in one word, “ train young men in the science and art of improved husbandry ; ” and in the second, it must conduct experiments and publish the results.”   The report talks about how this should happen – by having a “model farm” with the added capacity of conducting experiments.  Now as you read through the reports, it is very clear that the authors are aware that this will take time – and they proposed it would take 5 years to have such a facility.

What I want to concentrate on is the Experiment section of these reports.  They actually start in Volume 2 – that means there was an experiment, actually 2 livestock feeding trials were conducted in the winter and summer of 1876, and a plot experiment during the growing period of 1876.   The data you ask??  Available in the reports!!!  Here’s an example:

Source: Second Annual Report of the Ontario School of Agriculture and Experimental Farm.  For the year ending 31st October 1876.  Printed by the Order of the Legislative Assembly, Toronto: Printed by Hunter, Rose & Co., 25 Wellington Street West, 1875.

Now – apart from finding some of the OAC Historical data, what I really found interesting was the whole approach to research!  I’ll leave you with one longer quote here and follow-up next time with some more thoughts and questions.

‘But, experiments are wanted now.   There are A.B.C. duties owing the country and students in this response that must not be delayed – an initiatory work, having in view the testing of elementary principles, that should guide all sound, scientific, and practical farming in animal and plant life, with special reference to different modes of feeding, manuring and cultivation, or , as the Commissioners have put it, “to conduct experiments tending to the solution of questions of material interest to the agriculturists of the Province.”

While nothing definite has been laid before us, no suggestions, anything wanted by the farmers – something they would like to see done, it was thought desirable that simplicity should mark our first effort in this department, with growing experience as a guide, and practical utility our beacon – that is, will the experiment be useful to the general farmer, is it within the range of his daily work – can he lay his hands upon our results and follow them if desirable – will his land be enriched, his crops increased, and his stock give earlier and better returns?  Another leading idea in feeding was, to use meantime only such materials as have been produced on the farm, or what are within the reach of any ordinary farmer.’

Wm. Johnston, President of the Ontario School of Agriculture and Experimental Farm

Wow!!!  A few key phrases to highlight:

• conduct experiments and publish the results
• lay his hands upon our results and follow them if desirable

Let’s dig into these next time – maybe ask the question – why is Michelle pointing out these 2 phrases????

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the AAFC news – seven research facilities closing with many job cuts.  Research facilities with over a century of research, data, reports….  Oh you all know where I’m going with this!!!  Yup!  Where is all that data?  Gone?  Hidden?  Maybe in some repository?  I don’t know!

What I do know is that we, as an industry and as data researchers and archivists, need to seriously think about that data!   Lacombe Research Centre – 119 years of research – many of these in the field of meat science!  If anyone works in that area – you are well aware of the changes we’ve made over time in the quality of our meats – how we evaluate and grade – a lot of that research was developed at Lacombe!   As a beef geneticist who worked in the meat science field, I am crying if that data is not saved or at least documented!  Uh-oh I said that magic word “document”.

I’m trying to stay optimistic and hopeful – but when I attend industry related meetings and the primary question that arises is “What data?” followed by “Where is the data?” I get scared!  The only reason I am familiar with the type of research and data that was collected at Lacombe is because of my research background.  If I was to run a search today for pork grade data – ok – let’s try it for giggles.

Hmmm…  ok I should add Canada and see if that changes anything….

Yup!  As I suspected nothing but reports – no data!  So – that initial question of “What data?” followed by “Where is the data?” is not being answered!

Two points I want to make here:

1. Data is NOT easy to find – nothing showing up for Lacombe information?   If you didn’t know this data existed you wouldn’t know to ask about it.  The classic “If you don’t know you don’t know!”  So – if we don’t know it exists then it’s ok to let it go?  Maybe I shouldn’t worry about the data that’s been collected for the past 119 years?
2. This is the MAIN problem that we are trying to solve with both ADC and the CS-DCC!   A catalogue of data sources to search across.  A place to visit to determine IF the data exists – followed by where the data exists.  BUT if we don’t know it exists or if it disappears then….

Let’s wake up and acknowledge that our data is VALUABLE and needs to be preserved!

Let’s hope I am wrong and the data collected at the seven AAFC facilities slated for closure will be preserved and FAIR!

It’s me again!  Yup back to that historical data topic too!  I didn’t want to leave everyone wondering what I did with my old data – so I thought I’d take you on a tour of my research data adventures and what has happened to all that data.

BSc(Agr) 4th year project data – 1987-1988

Let’s start with my BSc(Agr) data – that image you saw in my last post  was indeed part of my 4th year project and a small piece of a provincial (Nova Scotia) mink breeding project: “Estimation of genetic parameters in mink for commercially important traits”.  The data was collected over 2 years and YES it is was collected by hand and YES I have it my binder (here in my office).  Side note: if you have ever worked with mink – it can take days to smell human after working with them 🙂   Now some of you may be thinking – hang on – breeding project – data in hand – um…  how were the farms able to make breeding decisions if I had the data?  Did they get a copy of the data?

Remember we are talking 40 years ago – and YES every piece of data that we collected – IF it was relevant for any farm decisions, was photocopied and later entered into a farm management system.  So, no management data was lost!  However, I took bone diameter measurements, length measures, weights at regular intervals, and many more measures – that frankly were NOT necessary or of interest to management of the animals at that time.  Now that data – to me – is valuable!!  So – what did I do with it?  A few years ago – during some down time – I transcribed it and now I have a series of Excel files with the data.  Next question would be – where is the data?   Another topic for next blog post 😉

MSc project data – 1989-1990

Moving onto my MSc data – “Estimation of swine carcass composition by video image analysis” (https://bac-lac.on.worldcat.org/oclc/27849855?lang=en).   Hang on to your hats for this!!

And you thought handwritten data was bad!  Here are all the printouts of my MSc thesis data and hand drawn acetate tracings from a variety of pork cuts!  Now what?  Remember I keep bringing us back to this concept of historical data.  Well, this is to show you that historical data comes in many different formats.  Does this have value?  Should I do something with this?

Well –  you should all know the answer by now :). Yes, a couple of years ago I transcribed the raw data sheets into Excel files.  But, those tracings – they’re just hanging around for the moment.  I just cannot get myself to throw them out – maybe some day I’ll figure out what to do with them.  If you have any suggestions – I would LOVE to hear from you.

Also note, that the manager of the swine unit at that time, kept his own records for management and breeding purposes – this data was only for research purposes.

PhD project data – 1995-1997

So up until now – it took work but I was able to transcribe and re-use my BSc(Agr) and MSc research data.  Now the really fun part.  Here are another couple of pictures that might take some of you back.

. 

Yup!  My whole PhD data was either on these lovely 3.5″ diskettes or on a central server – which is now defunct!  Now we might excited and think – hey it’s digital!   No need to transcribe!  BUT and that’s a VERY LOUD

BUT

These diskettes are 30 years old!  Yes I bought a USB disk drive and when I went through these only 3 were readable!   and the data on them were in a format that I can no longer read without investing a LOT of time and potentially money!

Now the really sad part – these data were again part of a large rotational breeding program.  The manager also kept his own records – but there was SO much valuable data, especially the meat quality side of my trials that were not kept and lost!  To this day, I am aware that there were years of data from this larger beef trial that were not kept.  It’s really hard to see and know that has happened!

Lessons learned?

Have we really learned anything?  For me, personally, these 3 studies, have instilled my desire to save research data – but I have come to realize that not everyone feels the same way.  That’s ok!  Each of us, needs to consider if there is an impact to losing that OLD or historical data.  For my 3 studies, the mink one – the farm managers kept what they needed and the extra measures I was taking would not have impacted the breeding decisions or the industry – so – ok we can let that data die.  It’s a great resource for teaching statistics though.

My MSc data – again – I feel that it followed a similar pattern than my BSc(Agr) trials.  Although, from a statistical point of view – there are a few great studies that someone could do with this data – so who knows if that will happen or not.

Now my PhD data – that one really stings!  Working with the same Research Centre today yes 30 years later!  I wish we had a bigger push to save that data.  Believe me – we tried – there are a few of us around today that still laugh at the trials and tribulations of creating and resurrecting the Elora Beef Database – but we just haven’t gotten there yet – and I personally am aware of a lot of data that will never be available.

So I ask you – is YOUR research data worth saving?  What are your research data adventures?   Where will it leave your data?

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I’ve been talking about data ownership in a few different ways and I have also been digging into these wonderful historical data sources.  BUT! Where do we draw the line?  Let’s be honest that’s another really tough question to answer.

I have proclaimed many times, to many different people/audiences, and in different fora – that I LOVE my historical data!  I’ve asked the question to many – OAC is 151 years old now and we’ve been doing research for all those years – Where is all that data?  Gone?  Hidden?  In someone’s basement?

Let me ask you this now…  That historical data may be gone – but was there any value to it?  Should we go out, find it, and make it accessible?  Must ALL data be FAIR??  How does one decide?

I have NO clear answers to any of these questions – but I would love for you all to think about them.   Is there truly any value to the data I collected during my BSc(Agr) degree?  That was (Oh my! I’m going to say it) 39 years ago!!!  Yes I still have the binder with all the rawdata – but should I do something with it?  Should I make it FAIR?

How do we determine if there is value?  What do we keep and what do we throw away?

These are questions that archivists face everyday – but as a researcher – what do you think?  Is the data you collected 10, 15, 20, 40 years ago have value?  Should we make it FAIR???

I think you all know how I feel – if I had a magic wand – I would find and make all of our research data FAIR – doesn’t matter the age!  For me, in the research context all data has value 🙂

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I’ve been trying really hard to – as they say – “Stay in my lane” for these data ownership conversations.  Sticking to the research data front as that is my comfort zone and that’s the world I live and play in.  However, the topic of data ownership goes well beyond research data.  Today, I want to take you on a little journey of historical data and that nasty topic of data ownership.

In one of my previous posts Data Ownership – another quandary to consider… I talked about finding a really cool source of information or data, from the 1940-50 – a fictional situation in that post.  But, I’ll be truthful here – it’s a situation based in reality.   Here at the University of Guelph, our researchers have been conducting research for decades – heck it’s 151 years for our Ontario Agricultural College researchers and 103 years for our Ontario Veterinary College researchers.  That’s a LOT of very interesting research outputs and potentially a lot of fabulous data.  But we know the reality when it comes to data as we see and use it today – check out Historical Data – Where is it?  However, we do have a TON and I mean a TON of research reports that date back to the 1950s – that contain data!  This is where the data archivist in me screams:  Let it out!!!

So let’s talk about our options here.  I’ll use a real example – the Ontario Forage Crops Committee (OFCC) supported and conducted forage crop trials from the early 1950s and published results in an annual report.  These reports have since been scanned, archived, and are available online at their new home under the Ontario Forage Council, since the OFCC no longer exists and has been retired for almost 10 years.   Now these reports contain wonderful data and could show you trends in yields, in the crops used/tested across the years, and the changes in management.  However….  if you want to see these trends – well 60 PDFs here I come!   One of our stakeholders asked whether we could pull the data out of the PDFs and make it usable – oh did I hear you say FAIR???   I jumped on that bandwagon without a second thought and put together a project to extract the data and create a data portal for it.

Can anyone see what I did NOT do??   I got excited! and I LOVE historical data – so yes VERY excited!   BUT…  that little question popped up – Who owns the data?   Do I have the RIGHTS to pull this data out from one representation, create another, and make it available to the world???   Ugly, ugly questions!  I mulled these over for quite some time and convinced myself that since the reports were out in the open, I could do whatever I wanted as long as I cited them – right?  Hmm..  I knew as I was convincing myself that it wasn’t quite right!  Because?  I do NOT own that data or those reports!

Are we extracting the data and creating a portal?   You better believe we are!  How am I justifying this?  I went to the holders or owners of these reports and asked for permission.  Easy as that!  Now this is a great example of accessing historical information  – but I’ll close this post with a more challenging one – one that I am itching to do but will need to work through a few more things – such as copyright.

Back to historical data sources.   Has anyone heard of “The Monthly Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics” published by Dominion of Canada Department of Trade and Commerce Census and Statistics Office?   Oh my – now this is a true treasure trove of data – monthly data such as, Area, Yield, Quality and Value of principal Field Crops In Canada, by province going back to 1916!!!!  This was brought to my attention by a former MSc student from our FARE department who is now doing a PhD in the US and was looking for this data to use in this study.  Oh I would LOVE to pull this data out and make it available to our community.  BUT just BUT – there is a lot to discuss here in regards to ownership and rights.

If you have thoughts and recommendations – or would like to help with this project – please reach out!  I’ll chat about a few of the challenges I forsee next time…

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