Running head: CASE STUDY A2 – DATA SELECTION AND RETENTION 1

Data selection and retention – Case study A2

Santhosh Kumar Gujje

Harrisburg University
CASE STUDY A2 – DATA SELECTION AND RETENTION 2

Data selection and retention – Case study A2

This summary is to address questions 1 & 2 which are part of the case study A2, as part

of data selection and management practices.

1. What do you think about Pam’s comments on publication practices and her

suggestions for cleaning up the data?

When Alan consulted his senior Pam Alden about using his research data and findings to

prepare for his paper, Pam suggested few recommendations to help Alan here is a review of

Pam’s suggestions in terms of Ethical conduct of research. Pam’s comments of publication

practices which is data needs to be cleaned in order to get publication is vague and

misinformation provided to her fellow researcher because data cleaning needs to be done on a

case to case basis and it is integral part of ethical conduct of the research. Data collection and

analysis are later parts of the research, where the entire research study needs to be planned along

with data collection methodologies and defining the NOR (Normal Operation Range) for each

measurement is a key part. Alan should review his research and data collection protocols for each

data points and record if the data is within the expected ranges. For the data that is outside the

expected ranges, there should be further investigation about the data collection conditions and

research execution methods. Purpose of the research is not just for the publication or preparing

for the abstract, but to contributing to the field of research with advanced research findings (1).

2. How should Alan go about determining which points to include and which points

to exclude?

Pointing back to the research study setup and planning of the data collection, analysis and

reporting according to the protocols, and data review methods, Alan should determine the reason
CASE STUDY A2 – DATA SELECTION AND RETENTION 3

for the outliers, cell data that are not responsive in the experimental conditions. When discussing

with Pam, Alan mentioned that if he needs to repeat some of his experiments to improve that

culture conditions and I agree with Alan as it helps strengthening his research thesis instead of

just trying to get the data published. By recording the outliers and having the records, he would

be following the ethical data management practices which leads the path for ethical conduct of

research. Before deleting the datapoints with non-responsive cells and culture conditions, a

detailed report need to be written to explain the experiments were conducted according to the

protocols, and other data collection and measurement procedures were followed. Then by

repeating the similar experiments with better results might reinforce his research findings. About

deleting the outlier at time point 45 minutes is acceptable because it is a lone data point that is

different from all other experimental data and can be recorded as outlier but keep the records of

the deleted data as per the study in case of future references.

References:

1. Guidelines for responsible data management in scientific research

(https://ori.hhs.gov/images/ddblock/data.pdf)