Aims

The aims of this chapter are to:

A thought experiment

Imagine going to a busy researcher's office:

And if you asked them specifically about the ‘data’ that they collect as part of their research:

Let's offer an answer based on the answers of one of the authors of this book (himself a researcher). Andrew says:

Well, I am embarrassed to say my office is pretty untidy: a table strewn with papers; three bookshelves packed with books, reports, print-outs – a lot relating to research, but also teaching. A filing cabinet, which if you unlock it, is jam-packed with various papers, including some things like hand-drawn maps of an area of Sheffield; a stack of completed questionnaires; a roll of flipchart paper covered with Post-it notes, from a data collection workshop last year. All that is stuff I have gathered for my research. There are quite a few folders of interview transcripts as well. Some go way back! Also in there are some old-looking memory sticks. I wonder what's on them myself!

Of course where I work most of the time is here at the computer. Again, it's going to be hard for me to summarise what is on the computer. Here is a secure network drive where I keep a lot of project work – or used to – alongside files relating to teaching. The university also has a secure Google drive service. There is also a research data server. I guess I basically keep material in folders by project. But quite often it's a bit more complicated than that. For example, I might re-use material across a number of projects.