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Data Analysis: Considerations and Resources

Considerations

The choices you make while analyzing your data can also contribute to effectively managing your research data.

  • Document your steps. Consider the software you use for analysis, and whether those applications automatically generate information about your data files (metadata) and process steps (such as log files). Keeping track of your steps can save you time when you want to recreate your work, or share your methodology with others.
  • Boost your skills. If you’re new to using an application, or just want to learn more about software you use regularly, look for training opportunities. Emory University provides institutional access to LinkedIn Learning for a wide variety of online courses you can take on your own time.
  • Keep your data safe. Describe your data as you capture it, organize your files, and make smart choices about where you store your data. Since some software programs produce files that are proprietary and can only be opened in their applications, consider saving data in formats that can be opened by different software programs.

Resources

There are many units across Emory that can assist you with data analysis—from locating and preparing data, to getting access to software and computing resources, and learning more about research methods:

  • Data Services from Emory Libraries: for help with quantitative and geospatial data.
  • Biostatistics Collaboration Core: offers comprehensive statistical consultation and computational services to faculty, staff, and students at the Rollins School of Public Health, other divisions of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, and throughout Emory University.
  • Department of Quantitative Theory and Methods (QTM): supports the teaching, learning, and use of quantitative analysis across all disciplines at Emory University.
  • Emory Integrated Core Facilities: for help accessing resources from Emory’s many core facilities supporting advanced instruments and technologies.
  • Emerson Center for Scientific Computation: provides high-end computational facilities and expertise to the computationally-oriented scientific research at Emory.
  • Student Digital Life: provides access to software, including licensed statistical packages, for undergraduate and graduate students at Emory.
  • Office of Information Technology: provides products and services to help researchers collect data, manage research laboratory and specimen data, and analyze significant volumes of data through high performance computing. Supported data analysis tools include: 
    • High Performance Computing: Emory supports High Performance Computing (HPC) on campus through a relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a preferred vendor.
    • LabKey: a "biology-aware" data integration platform for analyzing and sharing complex biomedical data. Emory's Enterprise LabKey Server is a highly customized platform which can help define new data types, customize collection methods, and design workflows for individual environments.
    • Tableau: analyze and visualize your data with Emory's supported implementations of Tableau Desktop and Server.