Data Literacy: How to Make Your Experiments Robust and Reproducible

by Neil Smalheiser

Data How to Make Your Experiments Robust and Reproducible provides an overview of basic concepts and skills in handling data, which are common to diverse areas of science. Readers will get a good grasp of the steps involved in carrying out a scientific study and will understand some of the factors that make a study robust and reproducible.The book covers several major modules such as experimental design, data cleansing and preparation, statistical analysis, data management, and reporting. No specialized knowledge of statistics or computer programming is needed to fully understand the concepts presented. This book is a valuable source for biomedical and health sciences graduate students andresearchers, in general, who are interested in handling data to make their research reproducibleand more efficient.

282 pages, Paperback

Published September 25, 2017

Reviews

[T J · Rating 5 out of 5]

May I be Frank? No, I'm not changing my name. If you have a taste for large portions of knowledge about research strategies, and you like the tang of oddball humor on the side, read this book. This handbook for grad students in the "hard sciences," should be read by every student with scholarly inclinations, and by anyone hoping to draw useful information from an experiment. The prose is clear and concise enough for any interested reader, from middle school through graduate school. Smalheiser's vision of a scientific future where robust and reproducible experiments produce raw data that is openly shared with interested and engaged parties deserves an audience. Dr. Smalheiser writes engagingly and pragmatically about the ways in which science has and has not changed over time, and how contemporary researchers can be successful in their pursuits. "Data-driven research" exists within a minute, but life-saving, portion of academia. I was aware of my "data illiteracy" before reading this text, but now I'm confirmed. There is almost no valid "raw data" in contemporary educational "research," and I find this to be a relief. But, no, Dr. Smalheiser, the hyperlinked Finnegans Wake text is not a better metaphor for the uncertainty of knowledge than the Talmud. Hyperlinks offer explanations of ambiguities. The Talmud offers contemplation of such. There's a big difference.