Data

Definition (Robert M. Hayes)
From data to wisdom (D. Hawkins, L. Levy and K. Montgomery)
Data and hypothesis (Abraham Kaplan)
Preliminaries to data collecting (Deobold B. Van Dalen)
Requirements of data collecting (Mickey A. Palmer)
Forms of data collecting (Mickey A. Palmer)
Data processing (Deobold B. Van Dalen)
Data processing (Stafford Beer)
Phases of data processing (Robert M. Hayes)
Data selection (Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff)
Pitfalls (Stephen Jay Gould)

Definition

[1993] Robert M. Hayes, Measurement of Information
“... the term ‘data’, defined to be ‘recorded symbols’.”
“... data are not facts ... Indeed, it is fully possible for data, as defined here, to bear no relationship whatsoever to the real world or to facts.
... statements of ‘faith’ may well be contrary to the real world ‘facts’; propaganda, ‘dis-information’, and lies are usually so.
In other words, data as recorded symbols can well be ... a ‘thing in itself’, without any necessary real-world referent.”
(in "Information Processing & Management", vol. 29, n. 1, p. 2)

From data to wisdom

[1988] Donald T. Hawkins, L. Levy, K. Montgomery, Knowledge Gateways: the Building Blocks
- “Data are signals detectible by the human senses, including facts (the sky is blue), statistics (economic forecasts) or experimental results from a scientific experiment (the vapor pressure of a liquid).
- Information is a collection of data used by humans for decision-making. The data may be of several different types and come from several sources.
- Knowledge is the structure or the organization of information, including the relationship among items of information.
- The next step beyond data, information and knowledge is wisdom.”
(in "Information Processing & Management", vol. 24, n. 4, p. 461)

Data and hypothesis

[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry
“Data are always data for some hypothesis or other.”
(Chapter IV, p. 133)

Preliminaries to data collecting

[1962] Deobold B. Van Dalen, Understanding Educational Research
“Competent investigators determine in advance precisely:
- what data are relevant to their studies;
- in what formats they should collect their data to facilitate processing and analysing them.”
(Chapter 12, p. 382)

Requirements of data collecting

[1981] Mickey A. Palmer, The Architect's Guide to Facility Programming
“The three ‘Rs’ of data collection are particularly pertinent to observational procedures :
- representativeness : a study should be structured to insure that the behaviour observed is ‘representative’ of the kind of behaviour that usually occurs in the particular setting.
- reliability : data obtained must be ‘reliable’ or based on objective, double-checked observations.
- recording : neither representativeness nor reliability can be attained without accurate, complete ‘recording’ of data.”
(Chapter 3, pp. 70-72)

Forms of data collecting

[1981] Mickey A. Palmer, The Architect's Guide to Facility Programming
“To economize the time and effort required to collect routine or repetitive data, programmers use standardized forms. Such preorganized, pre-printed data sheets identify the type of information to be collected and provide space for inserting the data.”
“A compendium of forms may organize a data collection effort as a means of ensuring that certain information is acquired for any project or for each appropriate part of a facility. Standardized forms may also help organize data in a consistent format so that they are easy to identify and retrieve. The programmer may use data sheet as a central repository for compiling data as they accumulate.”
(Chapter 3, pp. 67-68)

Data : data processing

[1962] Deobold B. Van Dalen, Understanding Educational Research
“Data processing is the procedure of converting raw data - the nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio numbers that convey information about some observable aspect of reality - into some form that enables the investigator
(1) to summarize the relevant data or
(2) to test hypotheses.
The data may be converted, for example, into measures of central tendency (means), measures of relationships (correlations), or statistical tests of significance (F ratios, t tests, or chi-squares).”
(Chapter 12, p. 384)

[1967 Second Edition] Stafford Beer, Cybernetics and Management
“Data are streaming into the sensory organs of the body all the time, and they have to undergo a variety reduction before they can be handled at all.”
(Chapter XXI, p. 218)

Phases of data processing

[1993] Robert M. Hayes, Measurement of Information
“At least four levels of data processing are identified."
- “The simplest level of processing is data transfer or data transmission. If a sheet of paper is given to someone or if those same data are copied to another medium or sent through a telephone line, the process is that of data transmission.”
- “... data selection is best illustrated by operation of a computer database search in which records ‘relevant to’ a request are identified and retrieved from the files.”
- “... data analysis ... is best illustrated by placing data into a format or structure. In the context of an information retrieval system, data analysis might be illustrated by the sequencing of selected records according to some criterion (order of relevance, alphabetically by author, chronological by date, etc.).”
- “... data reduction is best illustrated by the replacement of large collections of data by equations.”

Data selection

[1970, First Edition 1957] Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher
“To be successful and right, a selection [of data] must face two ways :
- it must fairly correspond to the mass of evidence, and
- it must offer a graspable design to the beholder.”
(Chapter 8, p. 179)

Pitfalls

[1986] Stephen Jay Gould in Britannica Science Yearbook - pp. 236-248
- Fraud : outright and conscious fabrication of data.
- Finagling : unconscious fiddling with genuine data to push them towards preconceived conclusions.
- Disabling Bias : interpretation of genuine data in peculiar and illogical ways that preserve prior expectations.

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