No Data, No Computation, No Replication or Re-use: the Utility of Data Management and Preservation Practices for Computational Journalism

This paper tackles questions of data management, preservation and archiving that are critical to the long view of data access, use and re-use. This paper highlights important considerations for researchers and journalists within the context of ever changing methodologies for analyzing data for investigative reporting and computational journalism affecting public policy. As institutional repositories become more common and better established, there are more opportunities for corresponding data preservation and archiving of data in order to establish verifiable avenues for accountability and versioning in reporting. As computational journalism evolves, the care and access to data also needs to evolve. Libraries and librarians at research institutions are perfectly positioned to support access, preservation and management of data and some of the collateral information around analyzing data, such as models and algorithms. Included are examples of complex issues regarding data access, licensing and data archiving solutions with some recommendations for best practices.

Paper accepted to the Computational Journalism Conference 2015, C+J Symposium.

Paper presented on October 3, 2015, Columbia University, Brown Media Institute, 2015 C+J Symposium.