“Research data are data that are used as primary sources to support technical or scientific enquiry, research, scholarship, or creative practice, and that are used as evidence in the research process and/or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results. Research data may be experimental data, observational data, operational data, third party data, public sector data, monitoring data, processed data, or repurposed data. What is considered relevant research data is often highly contextual, and determining what counts as such should be guided by disciplinary norms.”– Frequently Asked Questions Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy
Creative and art-based research is conducted by researchers and artist/designers who use artistic processes as research methods (i.e., arts-based methods). Other descriptions of arts-based research include: arts research, artistic research, and research-creation.
Lévesque, Michel, & Doiron, James. (2021). Data Management Plan Template: Arts-Based Research. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4571671
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Author Patricia Leavy describes arts-based research as "any social research or human inquiry that adapts the tenets of the creative arts as a part of the methodology ... the arts may be used during data collection, analysis, interpretation and/or dissemination" (Jones & Leavy, 2004, pp.1-2)
Jones, K., & Leavy, P. (2014). A Conversation Between Kip Jones and Patricia Leavy: Arts-Based Research, Performative Social Science and Working on the Margins. The Qualitative Report, 19(19), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2014.1232
Artwork is a prominent type of data in ABR that is commonly used as content for analysis and interpretation. Artworks that exist as, or are documented in, image, audio, video, text, and other types of digital files facilitate research data management. The same applies to preparatory, supplemental, and discarded artworks made in the creation of a principal one. Research findings you create in the form of artwork can be treated as data if you will make them available for researchers, artists, and/or the public to use as data. Information about artistic processes can also be data. Read more on artwork and artistic processes as data at Kultur II Group and Jisc.
Examples: Drawings, songs, poems, films, short stories, performances, interactive installations, and social experiences facilitated by artists are examples of data. Data on artistic processes can include documentation of techniques, stages, and contexts of artistic creation, and the physical materials (e.g., paints, textiles, found objects) and tools (e.g., pencils, the body, musical instruments) used to create artwork. Other types of data are audio recordings of interviews, transcripts, photographs, videos, field notes, historical documents, social media posts, statistical spreadsheets, and computer code.
Credit: Lévesque, Michel, & Doiron, James. (2021). Data Management Plan Template: Arts-Based Research. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4571671
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