Skip to Main Content

Digital Humanities: Data collection & storage

An introduction to digital humanities

Data collection and storage

Data collection and storage refers to acquiring and keeping data in a systematic way in response to a given purpose, research question or hypothesis.

Activities related to data collection and storage:

  • Capture data in the field
  • Conduct surveys
  • Establish clear data design principles (e.g. techniques for sampling data to create a representative and balanced dataset)

Tools and techniques used in data collection and storage

Tools:

  • ExSite9
  • REDCap
    • A mature, secure web application for building online surveys.
    • Used to collect data on geolocation for live mapping accessibility: Hamraie, Aimi. "Mapping Access: Digital Humanities, Disability Justice, and Sociospatial Practice." American Quarterly, vol. 70 no. 3, 2018, pp. 455-482. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aq.2018.0031
  • DocNow
    • Appraise Twitter for building archival and research collections.
    • Used to collect Tweet ID datasets on the Ferguson protests, Black Lives Matter, and Australian values, among others.
  • Conifer (Webrecorder)
    • Conifer is a web archiving service anyone can use for free to save web pages. Making a capture is as easy as browsing a page like you normally would. Webrecorder automatically archives the page, along with any additional content triggered by interactions
    • Used by Dragan Espenschied, the Rhizome preservation director, to archive the 2017 Seven on Seven net art exhibition from the New Museum.

Relevant guidelines and standards

  • Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)
    • International standard for describing the data produced by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioural, economic, and health sciences. DDI is a free standard that can document and manage different stages in the research data lifecycle, such as conceptualization, collection, processing, distribution, discovery, and archiving

Examples of data collection and storage

  • FAIMS Project
    • The Field Acquired Information Management Systems (FAIMS) Project builds tools for digital data collection in the field, including FAIMS Mobile, an app that allows people to collect information using their personal Android devices in many settings including remote locations with no internet access.
  • Emapic
    • Emapic allows you to visualise and administer geolocalised surveys, demonstrating on a map any knowledge, opinion or feeling with the users geographical location.

Available support

Consultation

If you want to talk to someone about data collection and storage, contact the University's Research Data Consulting team at digital.research@sydney.edu.au.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this website may contain images, voices and names of people who have died.

The University of Sydney Library acknowledges that its facilities sit on the ancestral lands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who have for thousands of generations exchanged knowledge for the benefit of all. Learn more