Purpose: Data discovery practices currently tend to be studied from the perspective of researchers or the perspective of support specialists. This separation is problematic, as it becomes easy for support specialists to build infrastructures and services based on perceptions of researchers' practices, rather than the practices themselves. This paper brings together and analyzes both perspectives to support the building of effective infrastructures and services for data discovery. Methods: This is a meta-synthesis of work the authors have conducted over the last six years investigating the data discovery practices of researchers from different disciplines, with a focus on the social sciences, and support specialists. We bring together and re-analyze data collected from in-depth interview studies with 6 support specialists in the field of social science in Germany, with 21 social scientists in Singapore, an interview with 10 researchers and 3 support specialists from multiple disciplines, a global survey with 1630 researchers and 47 support specialists from multiple disciplines, an observational study with 12 researchers from the field of social science and a use case analysis of 25 support specialists from multiple disciplines. Results: We found that there are many similarities in what researchers and support specialists want and think about data discovery, both in social sciences and in other disciplines. There are, however, some differences which we have identified, most notably the interconnection of data discovery with web search, literature search and social networks. Conclusion: We conclude by proposing recommendations for how different types of support work can address these points of difference to better support researchers' data discovery practices.
翻译:数据发现做法目前往往从研究人员的角度或从辅助专家的角度进行研究。这种区分是成问题的,因为支助专家很容易根据对研究人员做法的看法而不是实践本身来建立基础设施和服务。本文件汇集并分析了两种观点,以支持建立有效的基础设施和数据发现服务。方法:这是作者过去6年来调查不同学科研究人员的数据发现做法的元综合研究,重点是社会科学和支助专家。我们把从深入访谈研究中收集的数据与德国社会科学领域6名支助专家汇集在一起并进行再分析,与新加坡的21名社会科学家进行面谈,与10名研究人员和3名来自多个学科的支助专家进行面谈,与1630名研究人员和47名来自多个学科的支助专家进行全球调查,与社会科学领域的12名研究人员进行观察研究,并利用来自多个学科的25名支助专家进行个案研究。结果:我们发现研究人员和支持专家在深入访谈研究中需要哪些数据发现许多相似之处,并思考数据发现,社会科学领域和其他学科领域的6名支助专家;与新加坡的10名社会科学家和3名支助专家进行面谈,与多个学科的3名支助专家进行全球调查;我们通过网络研究得出了一些更好的研究,从而得出了这些研究结论。