Raw Data vs Interpreted Data

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Preliminary stats from the survey

A brief survey of the kind of data you use in your daily work


Briefly describe the data you use on a routine basis ("Hydrology," "temperature," "income," "disease occurrence," whatever it may be, just be pointed and brief.)

What format is the above data in when you get it? ("Spreadsheet," "Excel spreadsheet," "database," "raw ASCII," "SQL dump," "Oracle tables," "AVHRR imagery" are all valid answers. State the generic format type, the brand name of the software, or both, as the case may be for you.)

With regards to the data described above, would you call it "raw" data or "interpreted" data? ("Raw" data are those in which no human creativity was involved. For example, consider readings from a sensor, or census tabulation. Typically, these readings are then processed so they become suitable for human-consumption. For the purpose of this survey, we call these latter "interpreted data." Remember, we are focusing on the data that you get, not what it becomes after you have worked on it.)
Raw Data
Interpreted Data


Where are you currently located? (Laws governing data and databases vary from country to country. Please enter the country where you are located.)

From which country did you get the data? (Science is international, so it would help to know if you got the above data from a country different from where you are located.)

Preliminary stats from the survey (more analysis to come)

162 responses from 20 countries sourcing data from 30 countries. Location of respondents

More than half of you deal with what you view as "raw" data.

Raw v. Interpreted Percentages