What happened with that “OLD” data anyway?

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.

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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?