Experimental Metadata

Record metadata

Metadata tells people about how the data was collected. Data without context is meaningless as it cannot be analysed. Make sure that you know what metadata is important for each experiment and make sure that it is being recorded for each measurement you do. It may be the case that the metadata is collected along with the result in the result file but it may be the case that you have to record some of the data manually. This is what a lab book is for but it is also a good idea to make a digital record of the metadata too so that if the files are passed on but not the lab book, the data does not lose its value.