Social Research Methodology and

Supplementary Documentation

John Kallas
University of the Aegean, Department of
Sociology
 Documentation
 Open access depends on documentation
 Documentation is realized by two different documentation
procedures
 the procedure of document production
 the procedure of document integration in a documentation system.
 Document production is the work of data producers
 Social research products are different types of documents (Text
documents, metadata documents, data documents etc)
 In every research a number of documents is produced
 Document integration is the work of data providers
 To understand documentation as a document integration
procedure an infrastructure is needed
 The General Research Procedure
 The survey
 The transformation of an individual’s abstract internal mental
representation of social phenomena into formalized information;
 The choice of descriptive variables used to characterize each of
the individuals of the population examined;
 The choice of individuals who constitute the population examined
 The coding or recoding of the initial data characterizing each
individual by the descriptive variables
 The analysis
 The methods of analysis employed to treat and to transform the
data in order to furnish formal and often statistical results;
 The final transformation by the researcher of formal mathematical
results into the final results that are presented in a public discourse
or in a scientific text
 The one phase methodological
paradigm
The survey and the analysis are elements of the
same research procedure
The survey and the analysis share a common
design
The survey and the analysis are realized by the
same research team
Research product life cycle under
the one phase methodological
paradigm

Design Data Analysis

collection
 Research product life cycle
supported by infrastructure

Design Data Analysis Dissemination

collection

Archiving
Data
documentation

DB
 The two phase methodological
paradigm
 The survey and the analysis are elements of two different
research procedures
 The survey and the analysis don’t always share a common
design
 The survey and the analysis are realized by different
research teams
 Both Documentation procedures are realized by different
research team
 Document production also depends on infrastructures
The general research procedure
under the two phase paradigm

PRIMARY DATABASE SECONDARY

PRODUCTION SYSTEM PRODUCTION

DB
 The General Research Procedure
 The Primary Production
 Design
 Data collection
 The Secondary Production
 Redesign
 Dataset Integration
 Analysis
 Result presentation
 The Database System
 Archiving
 Data dissemination
 Data and metadata retrieval
 Research product life cycle under
the two phase methodological
paradigm
Metadata
Data retrieval
collection
Design

Data Archiving
Analysis Documentation

Data
Dataset DB
dissemination
integration
 Changes in Data Production
Data production in the context of a study
 Data modeling is based on the statistical ontology
 Units of observation are elements of a subject matter
schema designed in the context of the study
Data production in the context of a subject matter
field
 Data modeling is based on the statistical ontology and
on a subject matter ontology
 Units of observation are elements of a subject matter
ontology
 A subject matter ontology is not designed in the context
of a specific study
 Supplementary Documentation
 References and Citations
 A document refers to one or more existing studies
 A document is referenced by one or more existing studies
 Variable and Object of observation standardization
 A data element (a variable, or an object of observation) is
referenced by one or more existing studies
 Build subject matter ontologies independent from a specific
research project
 Use Data as Metadata (context data)
 Focus on differences as well as on similarities
 Supplementary documentation depends on infrastructures
 The conceptual metadata model
 Data production is based on conceptual metadata model
 It is distributed in a number of independed research teams using a
Grid of Research Infrastructures
 The Metadata model is
 The metadata model
 Models the semantics of an empirical research
 Models the semantics of a subject matter field and this is
independent from the functionality of any application
 Models the administrational parameters which depends on the
functionality of the applications
 Models the classification systems accepted by a community
 Conclusions
Metadata are produced in all the different steps of
the lifecycle.
In many cases metadata are part of the
infrastructure and are used as tools for production
Infrastructure development must be based on a
conceptual data model.
Research methodology affects the development of
infrastructure