Glossary

Glossary

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cleaned data

data that has been manipulated post-collection to remove errors or inaccuracies, introduce desired formatting changes, or otherwise prepare the data for analysis

conditional formatting

formatting that is applied to a specific cell or range of cells depending on a set of criteria

CSV (comma separated values) format

a plain text file format in which values are separated by commas

factor

a variable that takes on a limited number of possible values (i.e. categorical data)

metadata

data which describes other data

null value

a value used to record observations missing from a dataset

observation

a single measurement or record of the object being recorded (e.g. the weight of a particular mouse)

plain text

unformatted text

quality assurance

any process which checks data for validity during entry

quality control

any process which removes problematic data from a dataset

raw data

data that has not been manipulated and represents actual recorded values

rich text

formatted text (e.g. text that appears bolded, colored or italicized)

string

a collection of characters (e.g. “thisisastring”)

TSV (tab separated values) format

a plain text file format in which values are separated by tabs

variable

a category of data being collected on the object being recorded (e.g. a mouse’s weight)