Many biotechnology products, especially biopharmaceuticals, require extensive tests for safety and effiicacy. Documentation specialists ensure that proper records are kept throughout the processes of researching a new product and measuring it's potential for treatment.
Documentation in biotechnology fields takes many forms, including standard operating procedures (SOPs) and recordkeeping. SOPs need to be established and kept up-to-date to ensure lab techniques and workflows are reliable and reproducible. Recordkeeping involves maintenance of lab notebooks as well as recording use and maintenance of lab equipment. Oftentimes the documenter will be in correspondence with equipment manufacturers, contractors, and maintenance specialists.
What is project documentation, and why do it?
What is project documentation, and why do it? When your business focuses on efficiency, cost minimization, and speed-to-market, creating lots of documentation can seem counterproductive. If the documentation doesn't directly support a deliverable, why do it?
Project documentation covers documents created during and for the project itself. Examples include the overall project vision, the project plans, the schedule, and the risk analysis. The documentation process has a deeper purpose than merely creating piles of paper.
Documentation stimulates and structures critical thinking in planning the project's goals, risks, and constraints. The document is the evidence and chronicle of this critical thinking.
It provides memory containers for managing a level of detail that cannot be kept in people's heads. This includes the small details easily overlooked during day-to-day project work, as well as the larger things easily remembered today, but potentially lost or forgotten due to the passage of time or critical personnel changes.
It keeps the team and other stakeholders synced up and informed about project changes, issues, and progress.
In many projects, the documentation is often done late, done poorly, or not done at all—usually because the documentation is perceived as having little or no value. And, in fact, this is true if the documents are created as an afterthought or a necessary evil. Even documents with adequate content will lose value if they are created at the wrong time during the project, or aren't used in the project management process. Here are some examples:
Timing: If the project documentation is created at the wrong project stage, it may have little or no value, even if its content is quite good. Examples: a vision document created late in the project; a detailed schedule created before the stakeholders have agreed on an overall project vision.
Use: If the plan, vision, or risk analysis documents are created and then rarely or never referenced, they will likely have little or no value except for generating some initial critical thinking during their creation. Examples: a risk analysis that isn't referenced to measure progress on mitigations, or updated with newly discovered risks as they occur; a requirements document that isn't referenced later as a design completeness checklist.
Content: Inadequate or incomplete content decreases a document's value, even if it is created on time and used correctly. Examples: a status report for product development that doesn't track the product costs; a risk analysis that doesn't include risk mitigations.
A key reason for documenting is to reduce the risks in the project. The level of detail in even the simplest project is simply too great for the human brain to capture, remember, and manage. Properly done, project documentation is a dynamic, animated extension of the brains of the stakeholders. It allows us to focus our limited mental processing and decision making on different areas of the project at different times, without having to keep the entire detailed state of the project in our heads.
In a report or research paper, documentation is the evidence provided for information and ideas borrowed from others. That evidence includes both primary sources and secondary sources.
There are numerous documentation styles and formats, including MLA style (used for research in the humanities), APA style (psychology, sociology, education), Chicago style (history), and ACS style (chemistry).
Examples and Observations
Adrienne Escoe
"Documentation has many meanings, from the broad—anything written in any medium—to the narrow—policies and procedures manuals or perhaps records."
(The Practical Guide to People-Friendly Documentation, 2nd. ed. ASQ Quality Press, 2001)
Kristin R. Woolever
"An issue more important than documentation form is knowing when to document. In brief, anything that is copied needs to be documented...
"Perhaps the best tip for knowing when to document is to use common sense. If writers are careful to give credit where it is due and to provide the reader with easy access to all the source material, the text is probably documented appropriately."
(About Writing: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers. Wadsworth, 1991)
Note-Taking and Documentation During the Research Process
Linda Smoak Schwartz
"The most important thing to remember when you take notes from your sources is that you must clearly distinguish between quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material that must be documented in your paper and ideas that do not require documentation because they are considered general knowledge about that subject."
(The Wadsworth Guide to MLA Documentation, 2nd ed. Wadsworth, 2011)
Library Resources Versus Internet Resources
Susan K. Miller-Cochran and Rochelle L. Rodrigo
"When you are reviewing and analyzing your resources, keep in mind that the library/Internet distinction is not quite as simple as it might seem at first. The Internet is where students often turn when they are having difficulty getting started. Many instructors warn students against using Internet resources because they are easily alterable and because anyone can construct and publish a Web site. These points are important to remember, but it is essential to use clear evaluative criteria when you are looking at any resource. Print resources can be self-published as well. Analyzing how easily a resource is changed, how often it is changed, who changed it, who reviews it, and who is responsible for the content will help you choose resources that are reliable and credible, wherever you might find them."
(The Wadsworth Guide to Research, Documentation, rev. ed. Wadsworth, 2011)
Parenthetical Documentation
Joseph F. Trimmer
"You may decide to vary the pattern of documentation by presenting the information from a source and placing the author's name and page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence. This method is particularly useful if you have already established the identity of your source in a previous sentence and now want to develop the author's idea in some detail without having to clutter your sentences with constant references to his or her name."
(A Guide to MLA Documentation, 9th ed. Wadsworth, 2012)
Project Manual Documentation Template - Outline
This outline provides a descriptive list of items to help you create a research management plan for you and your team. Consider all of the documentation possibilities presented here, then use your discretion to add/edit/modify to fit your project parameters. Depending on the size and complexity of your project, certain components may require separate and more detailed documentation. For example, data collection protocols may be referenced in a project organization protocol and live as their own stand-alone documents.
1. PROJECT OVERVIEW
Summary of Research: In a brief statement describe the research to be performed and the data to be developed. This could include a statement on the source of funding; research design and context; project history; aims and objectives; hypotheses; related publications and research outputs; etc.
Roles and Responsibilities: Description of the research team. List team member names and contact information. Include additional details such as team member roles and responsibilities, both generally and specific to data management/organization. Provide information on data ownership and rights. Set guidelines for communication best practices; standards for teamwork and conduct; other general expectations (e.g., work required for publication credit, etc.).
Individual Team Member Documentation: Detail standards and practices for personal lab notebooks or project diaries. Include information such as documentation responsibilities; ownership of research materials; and sharing policies.
2. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION PLAN
Folders and Files: Outline the project folder structures and location of files by type and/or stage of development (raw, processed, master, etc.). Set standards for folder or file naming conventions, including for versioning or modifications. Provide guidance on selecting file formats.
Storage and Backup: Explain the storage infrastructure and protocols for saving and backup (e.g., scheduling, testing, disposal, etc.). Detail how to handle security considerations, including access rights.
3. DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING DOCUMENTATION
Data Collection Methods: Describe the protocols, procedures, and workflows. List information about tools used such as instruments, hardware, and software. Give details of quality assurance procedures; information recorded about the data collection process itself; use of structured data entry documents (if any).
Data Processing Methods: Detail the protocols and procedures to clean the data and prepare it for analysis. List the hardware and software used; quality assurance procedures; information to be recorded about the data processing procedure itself.
Metadata: Provide contextual information about the data needed to discover, understand, and make use of it. Describe alignment with disciplinary standards (if any). Detail how to create or link to codebook or data dictionary which includes variables. Explain coding practices.
Sensitive Data Considerations: Explain how to adhere to requirements such as anonymization; special storage protections and permissions; disposal regulations. Include IRB considerations and link to/append compliance documents.
4. DATA ANALYSIS DOCUMENTATION
Data Analysis Methods: Describe the protocols, procedures, and workflows. List information about tools used such as hardware and software. Give details of quality assurance and quality control procedures; information recorded about the data analysis process itself (e.g., techniques, etc.).
Dataset Versioning: Outline how to provide clear identification and definition of versions; including distinction between versions.
Master Dataset Rules: Explain the designation of the master dataset. Describe protocols for using the master dataset.
Overview
This lesson provides an introduction to the process of documenting research, with an explanation and examples of different ways learners can document their research, as well as activities for students to brainstorm, plan and try out different types of documentation.
Learning Information
- ToL Learner Level:
- Intermediate; Advanced
- Target Grade/Age Level:
- All Grade/Age levels.
- Can be modified for many age/grade levels
- Learning Objective(s). Learners will:
- Review and discuss;
- How they can document their research projects to in a manner that will help them to analyze their work and present their work in the form of a treehouse ;
- Reasons for documenting data with multiple forms of media ;
- Their own past experience and expertise with documenting research and creating multimedia;
- Engage in activity that allows them to practice and plan for documenting research
- Type of Activity
- Classroom resource; Web-based resource; Informal learning resource
- Science Subject / Key Words
- Methods, Techniques, Apparatus
- Suggested Time Frame
- 30 minutes to introduce basic ways to document research - longer if students will engage in a class discussion or brainstorm ways to document their own project.
- Sequence and Context
- This lesson could stand alone but is designed to be part of a set of lessons guiding students toward conducting research in small groups and publishing their process and results on a Treehouse webpage on the Tree of Life website. As part of that plan, this is lesson #2, following a basic introduction to the Tree of Life.
- Curricular Areas:
- Language Arts;
- Technology
- Language:
- English
- Teaching and Learning Strategy:
- Inquiry Learning;
- Hands-on Learning;
- Technology Integration/Computer Assisted Instruction;
- Discussion;
- Presentation
- Grouping:
- Large Group instruction;
- Small Group instruction
Introduction
When beginning a science investigation or project, students may wonder how to document their research. Documenting research is an important part of being a scientist. Keeping written, visual and sometimes audio documentation about your research is critical for several reasons:
- You need to collect data in order to analyze what is occurring in your research. Collecting data goes hand in hand with documenting research. How you go about collecting data and documenting research will depend on the research questions that you have, as well as how you want to present the outcome of your work.
- You will want to present and/or publish your research process and results at the conclusion of your investigation or project. In order to do this, you need text, images and other kinds of media to show others what you have done.
- Scientists sometimes like to replicate experiments, oftentimes in order to test whether the results will vary. That means they perform the experiment again, exactly the same way the original scientist did. In order for experiments to be replicated, the group of scientists doing the replicating needs an accurate set of instructions, and written, visual and audio documentation can provide these instructions.
Physical Materials and Tools
- Science Notebook or Journal
- Optional/Recommended Items:
- Digital Camera
- Digital Recorder
Prior Knowledge
Students and instructors should have a general familiarity with the ToL and ToL Treehouses.
Lesson
- First, choose one of the options below for presenting the material to your students (either one of the online options or the offline option).
- Online Options
- Teacher with computer only:
- Present to students the Learner Section (accessible from the top of the page and the support materials section) and the ToL page Documenting Your Work with the use of a projector or TV monitor plugged into a computer.
- Teacher and students at computers:
- Present to students the Learner Section (accessible from the top of the page and the support materials section) and ToL page Documenting Your Work. Ask students to go to these pages also.
- Teacher with computer only:
- Off-line Options
- Print out copies of the page Documenting Your Work and the Learner Section (see link at the top of the page or in the support materials section) for students to review and follow during the lesson.
- Online Options
- Next, go over the section at the top called: "Why Document Your Work?" and discuss:
- What are some reasons you may want to use multimedia (text, images, movies, and sounds) to document your research?
- What are some ways you have used multimedia to document research in the past?
- When you tell a story what are your favorite ways of communicating (e.g. what types of media do you prefer to communicate your message)?
- Then, review with students the following sections:
Review the Text (Written) Documentation Section
Discussion
Ask Students:
- What type of information do you think would go into the three types of written documentation listed (science journal, personal journal and formal report)?
- Why do you think each type of documentation is necessary or advantageous?
- What types of written documentation have you done before, what are your opinions and preferences?
Activity
Tell Students:
- Visit some of the example sites in the Text Section of Documenting Your Work. What is being documented with text?
- Set up your own science journal, labeling pages for research ideas, hypotheses and research process steps.
- Brainstorm some things you might be interested in researching and write them down/share.
Review the Visual Documentation Section
Discussion
Ask students:
- What kind of media would you prefer when learning about something? Do you think visual media adds to your learning experience?
- Why might scientists want to use visual media?
- Establish expertise: What is your experience with digital cameras? Who has used a digital camera and then loaded pictures onto a computer?
- Establish expertise: What is your skill with drawing? Who considers themself an excellent illustrator? Who draws from observation and who from their own imagination?
Activity
Tell Students:
- Visit some of the example sites in the Visual Section of Documenting Your Work. What is being documented with images/video?
- What are some organisms that you could study that would be easy for you to document visually? What are some organisms that you would like to document visually? Write them down/share.
- (Time allowing) Divide students into pairs or groups of three and ask them to go on a brief in-classroom scavenger hunt to take a digital picture of the following items in some form, or if no camera is available to draw the following:
- an animal,
- a piece of scientific equipment,
- a science journal,
- a plant
Review the Audio Documentation Section
Discussion
Ask students:
- Why might recording sounds of organisms be very useful for research and for presenting information?
- What other audio documentation might be good to communicate a message?
- Does anyone in the class have experience recording sounds?
Activity
Tell students:
- Visit some of the example sites in the Audio Section of Documenting Your Work. What is being documented with audio?
- What are some organisms that you could study that would be good for audio documentation? What are some organisms that you would like to document visually? Write them down/share.
Final Activity
- Create the chart below on the board, and/or have students create a chart in their notebook, or pass out the handout of this chart (see support materials below). The top columns should represent the different types of media that could be collected. You can use the projects listed here or have students generate projects they are interested in pursuing.
- Have students work in pairs or in groups to brainstorm the types of media they would use and why. Share as a class and have everyone fill in as much of the chart as you would like.
- During the discussion remind students that the point of documenting research is not just to make a pretty presentation, but to show others what they did, how and why they did it, and what they discovered. Challenge students to explain why they chose the types of media (both form and content) that they have brainstormed.
| Project | Text | Images | Movies | Sounds |
| Local Weeds | ||||
| Insects of the Schoolyard | ||||
| A Glass of Pond Water |
Worksheet