The maintenance of comprehensive documentation detailing the data creation process and the steps taken involves a significant but profitable investment of time and resources. It is more effective if documentation is generated during, rather than after, a data creation project. Such an approach will result in a better quality data collection, as well as better-quality documentation, because the maintenance of proper documentation demands consistency and attention to detail. The process of documenting a data creation project can also have the benefit of helping to refine research questions and it can be a vital aid to communication in larger projects.
Proper documentation contributes substantially to a data collection's scholarly value.
The elements essential to good documentation are described below . At a minimum, documentation should provide information about a data collection's contents, provenance and structure, and the terms and conditions that apply to its use. It needs to be sufficiently detailed to allow the data creator to use the resource in the future, when the data creation process has started to fade from memory. It also needs to be comprehensive enough to enable others to explore the resource fully, and detailed enough to allow someone who has not been involved in the data creation process to understand the data collection and the process by which it was created. Contents A description of the contents of the data collection should be provided in sufficient detail to allow any potential user to assess whether it is suitable for their needs.