Managing
tertiary, secondary AND primary sources of information
Traditionally, information has been classified according to three levels - primary sources, secondary and tertiary sources.
Primary sources of information pertain to original data and research - this includes the quantitative / qualitative data that you gather as part of your research or studies.
Secondary sources report that original data - theses, journal articles or conference papers describing the outcomes of a research project fall into this category.
Tertiary sources report on, or bring together, the research in an area or a topic. Review articles, encyclopaedias, yearbooks and handbooks are all tertiary sources.
Many of the preceding pages have discussed strategies or systems that
allow you to manage published information - the secondary and tertiary
sources. While these systems are mainly concerned with 'bibliographic'
information - books, journal articles, proceedings etc - they can also
assist in managing your 'unpublished' information sources - emails, letters,
phone conversations etc. Endnote, for example, has a reference style for
'personal communication'. Keep this in mind as you decide upon, and develop
your information management system.
There are also a variety of computer programs, which allow you to store and control 'primary' data and information. If you are undertaking qualitative research, there are a range of programs that help you to manage, and analyse your data. Scolari (http://www.scolari.co.uk/) is just one company that distributes software tools for researchers including NuDIST and NVivo. There are similar packages that let you input and manipulate quantitative research. Such products (and companies) include SPSS http://www.spss.com/ and Statistics and Operations Research (http://www.sas.com/rnd/app/Home.html). Your supervisor or colleagues should be able to provide advice or assistance with the selection (and use) of such programs.
Leonie Williams, the Associate Dean (Teaching&Learning) AHS - discusses the use of data management programs in qualitative research
A purpose of such programs is to not only manage your data, but also to
assist you in identifying themes / issues / topic areas - the 'hooks'
of your research!!
The following comments provide some clues as to how 'data management' can help with identifying the hooks or themes within research. Click on the icons to listen to the audio files, or read the transcripts.
