Research Data ScaryTales

01. Backup is key Because they had forgotten their key they had to go through another year of "physical" hardships. A team of students and academics worked on a big physics study for over a year, involving complex videos taken of micron-sized patterns, which was a very long and time-consuming process. Throughout the year, they gathered several terabytes of video. The videos were labelled systematically and the experimental info stored in a Excel file. Without this Excel file all the data is essentially meaningless for analysis. Regular and multiple backups of the video files were made, a process which took a long long time with all that data. Backing up the key file, however, was not given any thought. The graduate student in charge of the file cleaned up his computer and somehow managed to delete the file, rendering the whole years´ work meaningless. Attempts at recovery failed and the research was set back by over a year. The story shows that a Data Management Plan makes sense right from the start. It identifies both the amount of data to be backed up and their relevance in the research process. Therefore, the DMP (hopefully) prevents central files from being overlooked during backup because they have a relatively small volume compared to others, making their backup seem comparatively trivial. Source: • personal communication 02. Costly Birthdays She just couldn't finish her cost analysis, because those birthdays kept on interfering. When she tried to create a cost analysis for electronic media, the employee was surprised when her table repeatedly showed absurd results at the end of her calculations. After a quick search, it became clear that when importing the CSV file for the usage statistics into Excel, the prices had automatically been transformed into dates. Usage statistics for electronic media are typically delivered as CSV files. If these are imported into an Excel file in the basic settings, prices are converted to dates, even though this is not the desired outcome. This prevents a meaningful interpretation of the data since no average usage costs can be calculated if a part of the prices is systematically excluded. The example shows that when importing data into spreadsheet programs, careful attention must be paid to the correct formatting of the cells, otherwise automatic formatting changes may occur. Source: • personal communication 03. Lost Toys Only because an innocent child was born Woody and cowgirl Jessi were able to make their relationship public. Pixar came very close to losing a very large portion of Toy Story 2, because someone did an "rm *" (non geek: "remove all" command). And that's when they realized that their backups hadn't been working for a month. Fortunately, the technical director of the film realized that, because she wanted to see her family and kids (including a new baby), she had been making copies of the entire film and transferring it to her home computer. After a careful trip from the Pixar offices to her home and back, it was discovered that, indeed, most of the film could be saved. The example shows that even with state of the art backups, data loss can occur when multiple unfortunate coincidences coincide. In general, it is very important to store files in more than one place. A good basis for securely storing data is provided by the 3-2-1 rule. It states that data should be backed up to at least 2 different storage media in three different locations, one of which should be decentralized. In addition, to ensure sufficient reliability of backups, the effectiveness of the backup should be tested regularly. In practice, this is done by retrieving central files from the backup at random times and comparing them with the originals. Source: • https://kottke.org/12/05/how-pixar-almost-deleted-toy-story-2 • https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120514/17243918918/how-toy-story-2-almost-gotdeleted-except-that-one-person-made-home-backup.shtml • https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2 04. The Sound of Silence When he returned to his room after a long time, there was no music to be heard. In 2019, the social networking site MySpace announced that they lost almost all music, image and video data uploaded between 2003 and 2015 when migrating the data to a new server. According to MySpace, there is no back-up for the lost data. At the outset, the online platform was primarily intended for musicians to present their works and was comprised of more than 50 million pieces of music. This includes early works by artists who started their careers on MySpace. Especially for older posts, there are often no local copies of users because they relied on storage in the cloud. Thus, the works may be lost forever. The example shows very well that it always makes sense to store files in more than one place. A good basis for securely storing data is provided by the 3-2-1 rule. It stipulates, that data should be backed up to at least 2 different storage media in three different locations one of which should be off-site. Sources: • https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Datenverlust-Myspace-verliert-riesigesMusikarchiv-4338737.html • https://taz.de/Datenverlust-bei-MySpace/!5581108/ 05. Out of the blue After his collaborators stared into the clouds together, they dart an angry glance at him. At the end of the semester, a group of students worked on a final report for a study course. They edited the document together in an iCloud Drive and were about to complete the assignment. One of the students deleted the report in the belief that it was an old draft. At that time, there was no data recovery feature, and the group had to rewrite the report from scratch. It is not surprising that the other group members were not too keen on their fellow student during this time. The example shows quite well that storage in only one place is not sufficient to ensure secure data retention. In general, data should be backed up according to the 3-2-1 rule. Accordingly, there should be at least 3 copies of the data on 2 different storage media, one of which should be stored in an external location. In addition, when working together in a central location, you should be especially careful when removing/deleting files. Source: • personal communication 06. Gene Dating The meta-analysis seems to imply that September 2nd plays a crucial role in the function of cells. If files are imported or entered into spreadsheet software (such as Microsoft Excel) using the default settings, entries in cells are sometimes automatically reformatted. A study from 2004 found that this error also occurs frequently in spreadsheets with gene names in scientific publications. The names are automatically changed to dates or floating-point numbers. Since these changes are irreversible the original information regarding the involved genes is lost. A more recent study from 2016 revealed that the problem is still existent and no standardized solutions have been developed, yet. Roughly 20% of the investigated articles published in high-ranking journals in the field of genomics contained errors in the names of genes in spreadsheets. One example is the SEPT2 (Septin 2) gene, that plays an important role in the function of cells and is typically changed to 2 September in spreadsheets. Since the data from such studies are a valuable resource for the scientific community and the data are usually reused by other scientists, the loss of information is extremely problematic. A spokesman of Microsoft responded to the results of the story: "Excel is able to display data and text in many different ways. Default settings are intended to work in most-day-to-day scenarios”. This means that the documentation of scientific data like genetic analysis is not part of the daily business of most spreadsheet tools and that proceeding with additional care is necessary when using these programs for certain data types. The example shows that it is important to verify the accurate formatting of cells and the proper transfer of data into spreadsheets. Sources: • https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2105-5-80 • https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-016-1044-7 • https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37176926 07. Unsure Footing As the ship sinks into the floods, carpenters stare at their feet with concern. The Swedish galleon Vasa was a prestige project of Swedish King Gustav II Adolf and one of the largest warships of its time. On August 10, 1628, on her maiden voyage, she sank after only about one kilometre at sea. An investigation into the cause and a subsequent trial found that the ship was inherently unsound, because it carried too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. However, no major culprit was convicted. Archaeologists have since found that the use of different measurements for lengths contributed to the disaster. Although everything was specified in foot during the ship's planning, this information was not standardized at the time. For example, one group of carpenters used rulers in "Swedish feet” which are divided into twelve inches while the other used "Amsterdam feet” rulers divided into only eleven inches. Because the teams of builders working on the ship were using subtly different rulers but were following the same instructions, this produced parts of different sizes, contributing to the ship’s asymmetry. The example shows just how important it is to use common and well-defined standards for projects. Not only comparability and traceability depend on them, but sometimes even the overall success of the project. Sources: • https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-02-23/new-clues-emerge-centuries-old-swedishshipwreck • https://www.instmc.org/Festival/Why-Measurement-Matters • https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(Schiff) 08. Babylonic Confusion Are you Japanese? This may bode ill for your reputation. On January 1st 2020 a minor lexical revolution occurred in Japan. A new decree ordained that official documents should reverse the order of Japanese people’s names when they are rendered in the Latin alphabet. Until now in English documents Japanese names had to be written with the given name first, using the Western standard. Henceforth, the family name will come first and, to eliminate any ambiguity, may be entirely capitalized. Thus, Japanese naming conventions are now identical for Japanese and foreign characters, at the cost of breaking with the transcription standard that had been in force until then. This could result in a higher number of wrongly or non-attributed quotes, and thus a relative loss of reputation for Japanese authors. This will last until the providers of citation metrics and, more importantly, those citing Japanese authors have become accustomed to the new convention. The example shows that it is always convenient to have a persistent identifier to work around such problems. For people, for example, there is the non-profit scheme ORCID as well as Thompson-Reuter's ResearcherID. If these PIDs are used for scientific quotations, articles are correctly attributed to their authors, regardless of changed naming conventions. Those citing others are able to more easily keep an eye on the contributions of authors despite changes in name or convention. For the authors themselves, correct attribution of articles is indispensable for their academic reputation. Sources: • https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/01/02/why-japanese-names-have-flipped • https://www.forschungsdaten.info/themen/bewahren-und-nachnutzen/persistenteidentifikatoren/ • https://orcid.org/about • http://www.researcherid.com/?returnCode=ROUTER.Unauthorized&Init=Yes&SrcApp=CR#ri d-for-researchers 09. The forgotten Fantasy? Despite 20 years of waiting for the game, not all fantasies were fulfilled. The PlayStation 1 RPG games Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX developed by SquareEnix (at that time still Squaresoft) are considered the "golden era" of Final Fantasy history and many new games still have to compete with them. Nevertheless, SquareEnix has been silent for a long time about why the eighth installment of the series was never properly set up for PC or a current generation of consoles - although this was done with almost every other part of the series. The answer was easy and emerged through a series of interviews: The raw data (background images, music, 3D models etc.) and the finished source code of the game had simply not been archived. In the 90s there were fewer AAA titles (large projects that ran over several years) and games were produced at shorter intervals. As with Square, this meant that space had to be freed up again and again for new projects and little attention was paid to old project data. As a result, all Final Fantasy VIII project data was lost and a new version of the game could only be released in 2019 in collaboration with other companies. Although there are now many "remastered" versions of the Final Fantasy games at that time, most of which have been re-programmed, the lack of raw data is still a problem for the developers and the gaming community. For example, the background graphics of the games were created in high resolution, but only the compressed versions for the consoles of the time were stored. Due to today's HD displays, those are no longer up-to-date. This example shows how important it is to archive both the raw data and the actual project data. Publishing or completing a project should not mean the end of the data life cycle. Only when the raw and result data is properly organized can follow-up projects re-use the data and previous work be appreciated. Sources: • https://www.vg247.com/2018/09/14/isnt-ps4-xbox-switch-port-final-fantasy-8-preservationmay-answer/ • https://www.vg247.com/2019/01/09/final-fantasy-7-hd-remaster-remake-upscale/ • https://ffviiiremastered.square-enix-games.com/ 16. Look, don't touch Had she taken the saying "Look, don't touch!" more seriously, she would have spared herself the additional work. A scientist saved experimental data on her computer. One day, she opened the original raw data in Microsoft Excel and the formatting of some columns was changed automatically. In doing so, the original values were permanently re-formatted and were lost for any further analyses. Since there was no additional copy of the raw data, the experiment had to be repeated. The example shows that the long-time preservation of raw data requires particular attention. They should always be backed up and only be accessed on a read-only basis. The analyses should be done in a separate file, so that the original raw files are not accidentally altered. Source: • https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01040-w 17. Intervention from up-high A fallen president killed his laptop. An engineer's office was shaken by a small earthquake — hardly a surprise in California. A picture of former US president, and one-time client, Gerald Ford fell off the wall and hit his laptop, shattering the screen. After that, the man gave much more thought to what can happen to devices and data if such an event re-occurred. The story exemplifies that disaster preparedness is part of efficient research data management. This can be accomplished by using well-functioning backup systems and storing several copies of important data on different mediums and in at least one other location. Source: • https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01040-w 18. Bad Recycling The university saves resources, but now his quotations are a mess. A researcher begins his career enthusiastically. For this purpose, he is provided with a new laptop and a new email address and shown the way to the coffee machine. He quickly got to work and soon he had published his first scientific publication! To see if his publication is already listed in search engines, he checked in Google Scholar whether he found his work there. In fact, the website had listed his publication ... unfortunately, however, this was not the only work he found there related to his "new" email address. What had happened? The email address assigned to the researcher in question had previously been used by another scientist. After this person with the same first and last name changed employers, the address was "recycled". The existing email traffic was deleted and the address released for the new researcher. The university, or rather the responsible data center, probably did not expect publications and other services to be connected to this address. It was easy for the new researcher to get a new address, but it was very difficult to have his incorrect citations corrected on Google Scholar. On the other hand, the researcher was able to access all registered services with the recycled email address, which was a security risk for the previous user. Although the blame was clearly not with the researcher himself, the story shows how one has to be careful when reusing addresses, because at first glance it is impossible to see what they are associated with. If it is unclear whether your own email address is unique, for important registrations you should always use a persistent identifier such as ORCID or ResearcherID, which is related to a single unique person. This has the further advantage that it remains unchanged, even if the person concerned moves or changes their name or affiliation. In addition, it should be good practice to document your own registrations and to switch the registered services to the new mail address after changing institutions to minimize your security risks. Source: • https://www.lcrdm.nl/horror-address-recycled 19. Antiques Wanting to return to the beginning of her scientific career, she spent a lot of time at the flea market. At the beginning of her career, Leslie Vosshall stored her data on floppy disks the contemporary local storage devices. After that, the data was neither accessed nor migrated to a modern memory format (CDs, DVDs, USB sticks, or external hard drives). The disks are still there and present and nicely labelled. Even if the data is still uncorrupted and complete today, her hardware for reading the disks simply no longer exists. So in order to get the appropriate hardware, she would have to be very lucky and find a device which is still functional: at a flea market, a storage room at the university or, in the worst case, at a museum. The most important step to avoid this problem is to document the storage media used for past projects and continuously monitor the availability of complementary hardware. At the latest, when manufacturers announce that they will no longer install ports or drives in the newer generations of their devices, the data should be migrated to ensure bitstream preservation. Upfront you can avoid trouble of this sort, if data is not stored exclusively on one medium, but, in keeping with the 3-2-1 rule, on several media types. The obsolescence of one type of memory device will then no longer directly result in an inability to access the data. Source: • https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01040-w 20. Don‘t judge a book by its cover After she was informed about the determined identity, she was on the brink of tears. A PhD student used a DNA sample for her experiments that she received from a colleague. Since she trusted it, she didn’t verify the identity of the sample. She worked on the sample for several months, but couldn’t get meaningful results. Finally, the DNA sample was sequenced to see whether there was something wrong with the sample. It turned out that the sample was mixed up due to a mistake in labelling. Months of hard work had been completely in vain. The example shows that correct and clear labelling is important in the handling of physical samples. If there is uncertainty regarding the identity of a sample, it should be checked before it is further used in experiments. In addition, samples and the corresponding information should be documented in a physical and/or digital inventory. Source: • https://www.lcrdm.nl/horror-wrong-sample 21. Unsatisfying boots Only after he had the chance to recover, he was able to go into the mountains. A researcher went on a field trip to Tajikistan to do a study in the Pamir mountains. When he arrived, he noticed that his laptop, where he stored all the materials he wanted to use on the field trip, was not properly booting up. Since he did not have the material on an additional hard drive or as a printed version and the internet connection was too bad to get access to his online storage, the whole field trip was in danger. Luckily, he was able to find the only service center that had a contract with the company that produced his computer and the laptop was repaired. The story shows the importance of backups, especially in the planning of field work. Since there might not be adequate opportunities for repair and purchase of equipment at the location, possible complications need to be considered at the onset. Online storage is only suitable as a backup option if a steady and high-quality connection to the internet can be ensured. Source: • https://www.lcrdm.nl/horror-crash-on-field-trip 22. Command line troubles When she tried to erase the errors, things got really bad. During the first year of her computational biology PhD, a young researcher was still getting used to working with the command line. The supercomputer that all analyses were run on generated two files from each analysis job – a ".o" standard output file and a ".e" standard error file. While trying to clean up the thousands of error files that had accumulated, the researcher typed "rm *e*" into the command line and forgot the all-important dot. As a result, she lost every file that had an "e" in the file name. This included all of the evolutionary tree files she had spent months on, some of which took weeks to generate on the supercomputer. However, the problems didn’t stop there. To her horror, she discovered that she had not backed up many of those files. This small typo set her back weeks in her PhD. The moral of the story is to always backup your work every day and if you do a data cleaning, make sure you are deleting the correct files. Source: • https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/06/file-error-your-nightmare-data-loss-stories/ 23. Sharing is Caring After sharing his files, his colleagues got mad at him. A researcher worked in a team of six to write an encyclopedia of 800,000 words. After some deliberation, the team decided that all work should be shared on a common work area. There was already a server for this, which was used collaboratively for the project data by some members. When he put the result of his work on the shared memory, suddenly, the others were angry with him. The problem was that both the researcher's own files and the other colleagues' existing files were given generic names. The absence of an explicit, content-based naming convention meant that many existing files were overwritten when the local files were copied to the shared memory. The researcher did not worry too much about it since the old files should have been safely restored by a backup - only, unfortunately, this was more than 1 month ago and the recent backup had only covered the new files due to bad timing. Obviously, the research group did not place much importance on using a versioning system or a more thorough backup system. What is even more interesting here is the organizational structure, which apparently was never properly determined. Thus, all folders and files kept their default names that were created by the respective working environment (such as "index.html" on the web, "main.tex" in latex or simply "document.docx" in Microsoft Word) instead of well-defined names with the date, subject or author being part of the file name. This helps files to be recognized and retrieved more easily and reduces the risk of overwriting other files when copying. Source: • personal communication 24. Questions of Calendar 1908: Late Russians do not shoot. In the year 1908, the Olympic Games lasted 6 whole months. And yet, the Russian team managed not to be present for the shooting competition on July 11th. The problem was that they were still using the Julian calendar instead of the Georgian Calendar like the rest of Europe. This only changed with the Russian revolution in 1917. When the Russian delegation finally arrived, a month and a half of the Games was already over. They were able to compete in some other disciplines and win some medals. This, however, was a small comfort for the shooting team. The 1908 Olympics, however, were not only remarkable because of this calendric confusion. Documentation left much to be desired, as well. For instance, it’s still debatable whether Turkey was represented at the games at all! The story shows that establishing agreed conventions and standards is vital - be it for the smooth implementation of international competitions or in science. Without a clear definition of the standards used, data from third parties might not be interpreted or replicated correctly, if laboratory notebooks or memos are misunderstood. Source: • https://www.rbth.com/history/331074-russia-late-for-olympics-1908 25. On fire If the day had been a bit warmer, he wouldn’t have been in so much trouble. A box containing original documents was standing in a researcher's living room. On a particularly cold day, his daughter's babysitter looked for material to light a fire. She mistook the papers for fire kindling since she assumed that the filled-in questionnaires could only be scratch paper. This story shows that storing documents containing personal or sensitive data in locked furniture within locked rooms is crucial for data protection, but also to preserve the documents as such. While the damage from the document destruction would have been significantly reduced if there had been digital copies, this is not always possible for all documents. Thus, particular care must be taken with irretrievable materials. Source: • personal communication 32. It's the small things that matter If his name had been easier to spell, his accomplishments would have been recognized more. Small changes in the spelling of names can have severe consequences for the researchers' careers. Many alternative versions can be found especially for names that contain special characters. This can lead to a systematically lower recognition of citations. The researcher Terje Tüür-Fröhlich shows this effect in her work using the well-known sociologist Pierre Bourdieu as an example. She found 85 mutations for his name in public research databases. A flawed record of citations can be an issue in particular in the beginning of an academic career since citation indexes are used as a measure for scientific accomplishments and play a role in the allocation of funding or job applications. The use of persistent identifiers (PIDs) for persons represents a possible solution for these issues. Since authors are identified by the PID, mistakes in the spelling of the name are less problematic. Common PIDs for researchers are the non-profit scheme ORCID or ResearcherID by Thompson Reuters. By now, PIDs for persons have become somewhat common and a number of publishers ask for them when a manuscript is submitted. Sources: • https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Auch-Pierre-Bourdieu-ist-ein-Indexierungsopfer3727711.html • https://lisa.gerda-henkelstiftung.de/fehler_in_zitationsdatenbanken_sind_nicht_zufaellig_verteilt?nav_id=7314 33. Employee with an invisibility cloak He just seemed to keep slipping through the fingers of the human resources department. Although the HR department made several entries for Steve Null, he repeatedly disappeared from the database. The system took "Null" (german for zero) literally, and interpreted the entry as a missing date. For the database Steve did not exist. His non-existence was proclaimed by his name. Before processing the request for Steve, the system first checked whether any data had been entered at all. Modern systems prevent requests sent without content, which happens quite a lot, from unnecessarily burdening the system. Unfortunately, the side effect of this "search_term!= NULL" is that people named Null cannot be found in such systems, even though the corresponding entry exists. The search is simply aborted too early. This story shows that it may be useful to take a close look at the limits of the database system used.[1] Are there rules within the system that cause certain entries to be systematically not found or interpreted in a way that is not intended? In such a case, a look at the (hopefully existing) documentation of the software or in the case of transferred data at conventions used for missing values and the like helps. In addition, it is always useful to create appropriate documentation for all self-generated data, so that what was taken for granted yesterday, can still be traced in the future. [1] For any programmers thinking there is no way this is still a problem, Parker 2020 p. 257 refers to an XMLencoder problem in Apache Flex. Check out bug report FLEX-33644. Source: • Matt Parker (2020): Humble Pi - When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World, p. 259. 34. False Alarm Burn it did not – but the data were gone nevertheless. The head engineer at a data recovery firm once lost all of his personal possessions in a wildfire, so it was a little ironic what happened to one of his clients. The client had stored a rack of 96 hard disks underneath a fire-control sprinkler. One day, the sprinkler went off, probably due to a false alarm, and the disks were inundated with water. Most of that data was gone, since it had not been backed up. This story illustrates that you should always store your data according to the 3-2-1 rule (at least 3 copies on at least 2 different storage media and 1 of those in a different location. Also, regular and reliable backup is key. Source: • https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01040-w 35. In the enemy base When the agent infiltrated the base, they responded with hardware disposal. In 2008, the US military decided to dispose of all removable USB storage devices at all military bases and to stop using USB devices. What led to this decision? When a USB stick was discovered and analyzed during a Middle East mission, it later turned out that it contained malware from a foreign secret service organization. The data with the malicious code went unnoticed into the internal network of the US military. Ironically, the malicious malware program was called "Agent.btz". When the program and the vulnerability were discovered, the Pentagon decided to immediately dispose of all removable devices that run via the USB interface. To date, this has been one of the largest security breaches in US military history. However, devices that use the USB port remain a security risk to this day. Because of their universal purpose, they can quickly gain control of a system (for example, by pretending to be a keyboard) or just inject dangerous data. The moral to be learned from this story is that it is particularly important for research institutions and companies to never simply connect third-party USB devices to critical systems. An additional hardware adapter, virtual work environment or at least a virus scanner should always be switched on as a software solution in order to detect malware on a USB device at an early stage. Source: • https://www.computerworld.com/article/2514879/infected-usb-drive-blamed-for--08military-cyber-breach.html • https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xy5ky/the-american-military-sucks-at-cybersecurity 36. Lost in Translation Since they couldn't agree on common standards, he strayed from the right path. The Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) was part of a NASA program to gather information on Mars. On December 11, 1998 the MCO was launched. The aim was for MCO to circuit Mars in a spherical orbit and perform measurements regarding the atmosphere and the climate of the planet. However, there was a problem during the maneuver and the space probe came too close to Mars and was lost. The navigation problems resulted from the use of different units for calculations by the involved institutions. While the navigations team used the metric system, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the American company that had produced the probe, used Anglo-American units of measurement. The conversion of the units (e.g. Newton-seconds vs. pound-seconds) was not always taken into account, thus leading to errors in course corrections. In fact, NASA had made it clear in its "software interface specification" that the metric system should be used. The course correction program SM_FORCES by Lockhead Martin Aeronautics was not written in accordance with the official specifications and caused the loss of the spacecraft. The story shows that the use of well-established standards is a major pre-requisite for successful projects. This is especially important in projects with international partners from countries that use a system of measurement that is not based on the International System of Units (SI units), e.g. USA. The use of standards is also important for the comparability and traceability of projects. The use of a double-check system also helps to ensure consistent implementation of specifications. Source: • https://www.simscale.com/blog/2017/12/nasa-mars-climate-orbiter-metric/ • https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Verlust 37. Null Island Statistically, the area around the police station was the most dangerous place of all. The online crime map of the Los Angeles Police Department showed that between October 2008 and March 2009, over 1,380 entries came from the area surrounding the police station itself. That accounts for almost 4% of all recorded crimes in this city during this period. It was only when the LA Times (which base is also in the neighbourhood) complained that the police station noticed the error in the system. But what had happened? All police reports were written by hand at the time and the majority of them were automatically entered into the database. It also happened often that the location of the crime was not recognized. In this case, the location of the police station itself was simply taken as the default value. This was not checked, which led to a major falsification of crime statistics. The LAPD corrected the error by setting missing location information to a "null" value (information for missing value in computer science). Of course, null values can also render certain parts of data records unusable if the values have to be used for certain visualizations or calculations. One, therefore, speaks of "Null Island - where bad data goes to die". From this story one can learn how important it is to correctly determine the attributes of tables and databases, especially if they might also have missing values. If you simply set a value that appears to be logically readable for machines (such as "Null" as comment text or (0.0,0.0) as location), the data is not interpreted correctly and can falsify the subsequent results. You should always ensure that all possible values of a data set are well documented and that programs can recognize exceptional cases if necessary. Source: • "When Good Data Turns Bad" from the book "Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors" p. 253 38. In deep "shit" A less special feed would have allowed a more representative census among the beetles. Because they are cheap and ubiquitous, biologists have used human faces to take stock of fecal insects. Since some species find this food significantly more attractive than others, this procedure might have distorted the monitoring of local biodiversity, as studies by the Oxford zoologist Elizabeth Raine show. Alternative methods are currently being evaluated. The previous standard might be suboptimal and the concerted development of a new standard is the next logical step. History shows that traditional approaches should be questioned in terms of their impact on the results and that it can be important to develop a measurement procedure that pinpoints better what actually needs to be counted. At the same time, it becomes clear that the use of standards facilitates uniform error corrections and a consistent introduction of new procedures. Source: • https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/01/09/dung-beetles-preferhuman-faeces-to-those-of-wild-animals 39. Easy come, easy go If the visitor had come a bit later, he wouldn’t have lost his points. A researcher performed a lengthy experiment regarding the properties of plasma in a Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition reactor. He hadn’t saved the most recent data of the measurement as a theoretician of the project came to visit the lab and to discuss his models. The visitor pressed a key on the keyboard and deleted the latest test measurement data by accident. Fortunately, only one measurement point of the measurement series was lost so that they were still usable for the study. The lost data, however, could not be restored. The story shows that data should be saved and backed-up as soon as possible to prevent data loss. In addition, distractions should be avoided during the documentation and saving of data to prevent errors. Source: • https://www.lcrdm.nl/horror-erroneous-keyboard-key 40. Return to sender Without sorting, delivery would have been much easier. The Association of German Librarians (VDB) needed three attempts in 2019 to deliver its yearbook to its members. Names had been assigned to wrong addresses (a typical error if only one column in an Excel cell is sorted and the original line alignment is broken), so that the delivery of the books generated many returns. The fact that the delivery took place over the Christmas holidays made communication with VDB-members more difficult. During holidays, both those responsible for the association and the members had other priorities. Even after the members were informed that they should accept the books sent, even though they were not the correct addressees, not all yearbooks could be delivered in the first round. In the second attempt, a programming error occurred in the reorder form. Those who did not provide a membership number could not be served and had to reorder their volume in February a second time. Overall, the accumulation of shipping problems likely caused irritation among members and considerable costs for the VDB. The story clearly shows that special care is required when sending out mail. In any case, address data should be saved in read-only form, backed up several times and checked for integrity before dispatch. Software that is used in “customer” contact should be thoroughly tested for functionality before it is used. In this way, errors can be avoided internally and do not have to be ironed out live. Source: • personal communication 41. The end is nigh How Excel almost sabotaged Wiki-Leaks once. When Wiki-Leaks founder Julian Assange handed a file with over 92.000 field reports from the Afghanistan war over to journalists from The New York Times and The Guardian in 2010, the data abruptly ended in April 2009 even though there should have been data from the entire rest of the year. What had happened? The journalists had opened the data in Excel which, at that point, had a size limitation of 65.536 lines so that the file exceeded the spreadsheet's maximum capacity. All data after line 65.536 had simply been cut off. Even though the maximum size has been increased to 1.048.576 lines since then, this story still neatly illustrates that Excel is not an adequate substitute for a professional database. This is especially true for research projects that expect to generate a large amount of data. In such cases, it is very important to consider suitable alternatives and associated costs early on. Source: • "When Good Data Turns Bad" from "Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors", pages 244-245 48. The small difference On this magnetic track, the system started to lurch. In the spring of 2020, it emerged that hardware vendors such as Western Digital had sold unmarked HDD hard disks in SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) format instead of conventional hard disks in CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) format in various backup systems. This subtype of HDD hard drives saves space by overlapping magnetic tracks (similar to roof shingles) instead of just laying side by side, but the read and write speed is slower. As a result, backup systems simply failed, because they could not perform their data backup routines according to schedule. History shows that using the wrong or outdated hardware can lead to errors. Even if in this example it was not the researchers' fault, it should still be ensured that, as the amount of data increases (keyword: Big Data), the right conditions for working with the appropriate software are in place. The hardware should always be tested before it is put into routine use. Sources: • https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarinedinto-unexpected-channels/ • https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarinedinto-unexpected-channels/ • https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingled_Magnetic_Recording 49. Clone Wars More openness about the ancestry would have saved a lot of effort and money. At the beginning of the 2000s, stem cell research was the great hope for the development of new therapies. When, in 2004 and 2005, a relatively unknown Korean laboratory under the leadership of Woo-Suk Hwang announced in two publications in the prestigious journal Science that it had extracted a total of 11 stem cell lines from cloned human embryos, it was a sensation. At first, a new era of stem cell research seemed to be imminent, and researchers around the world were trying to replicate the Hwang method. Unfortunately, to no avail. A good year after the publication of the second paper, inconsistencies and striking similarities were noticed in the articles´ illustrations. A commission was set up to analyze the primary data. The results prompted it to conduct tests on DNA samples. It turned out that none of the stem cell lines came from cloned embryos. All the information and representations in the publications were invented. By then, millions of grant money around the world had flown into replicating the results - for nothing. If the journal in which the articles were published insisted that Hwang and his co-authors provide the primary data as a supplement, the fraud attempt would most likely have flared up immediately. Insistence on open research data could have created transparency and prevented the waste of funding. Following the well-publicized case, major journals changed their publication policies and research funding organizations began to pay greater attention to openly accessible research data. Sources: • On Being a Scientist. A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research: Third Edition (2009), https://doi.org/10.17226/12192 50. Promising developer personality As the captain of the women’s chess club, she was in a bad position to be selected. Amazon developed a computer program from 2014 onwards to evaluate the CVs of applicants. The aim was to automate the search for suitable candidates for any vacant positions. The program used artificial intelligence and rated the suitability of the application with one to five stars. However, in 2015 the company found that the program did not make gender-neutral selections for applications for software development or other technical positions. The online recruiting program simply didn't like women. This was due to the training of the computer model, which was fed with CVs of applicants from the last 10 years. Most of the applications came from men, a reflection of male dominance across the tech industry. The system taught itself that male applicants should be given preference and downgraded applicants if the word “woman” appeared in their resumes, for example “captain of the women's chess club”. After the case became known, Amazon claimed that the program was never used by recruiters to evaluate candidates. However, insiders said that the AI-based recommendation system had been used, but Amazon’s recruiters never relied solely on those rankings. The example shows that data quality is of crucial importance in machine learning. According to the motto “Garbage In, Garbage Out”, an algorithm can only be as good as the data set it is fed for training by humans. Sources: • https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight-idUSKCN1MK08G 51. Burning Cloud Before they knew it their game burst into flames. On March 10th 2021, 3.6 million websites were suddenly offline, including the French government portal – what had happened? For as of yet unknown reasons one of cloud provider OHV's 5-story server buildings burned down completely while a second building was severely damaged. The incident led to the destruction of 12.000 servers and to the sites hosted on the servers becoming unavailable. Beyond the servers, the company's hosted private cloud service, which had stored data from many big private corporations had also fallen victim to the destruction. Shortly after the blaze, the video game company FacePunch was forced to announce that all its data for the popular online game "Rust" had been lost, since FacePunch had no local backup. This story illustrates that cloud solutions can only be one part of an effective backup strategy. Following the 3-2-1 rule, at least two other local copies should always be made to avoid complete data loss like in this ScaryTale. Sources: • https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/groesstes-rechenzentrum-europas-brenntkomplett-nieder-17241629.html 52. The table is full Excel shuts down and Corona has to wait. In Great Britain, Corona case numbers were underreported for several days due to a data mishap that occurred when using the Microsoft Excel program. An overfilled Excel sheet is said to have been the reason for the loss of the test data. How did this happen? In Great Britain, the "test and trace" unit of the NHS (National Health Service) is responsible for sending the data for those who test positive for Covid-19 to the responsible health authority PHE (Public Health England). As the British Guardian reported, the authority had compiled and managed the case numbers in Excel spreadsheets since the beginning of the pandemic. Excel can only be used as a database to a limited extent, as the number of available rows in the software is limited. In the current Excel version, up to 1,048,576 rows can be entered. In this case, the limit was only 65,000 rows due to the use of an outdated Excel format. As a result, when importing the CSV file sent by the NHS with the 16,000 Corona cases submitted, the excess rows were deleted for a total of 15,841 cases. This resulted in the UK corona statistics looking better for a few days as well as infection chains not being followed up on. The example shows that when importing data, it is important to ensure that both the data format and the software can handle the type and scope of the data correctly. If possible, the latest version of software and open formats should should always be used. Sources: • https://www.t-online.de/digital/id_88701962/england-peinliche-excel-panne-unterschlaegtfast-16-000-infizierte.html • https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/corona-in-grossbritannien-excel-panne-behoerdeverschlampt-tausende-positive-tests-a-685a1d0a-7022-4dc2-82a7-1150fb0ec85e • https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/pandemie-datenpanne-in-england-die-tabelle-istvoll-16989088.html • https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54423988 53. Technical Revolution Russian red guards receive militant assistance from the future. During a history exam on the Russian Revolution of 1917, the painting "Storming the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917" by Nikolai Kochergin was supposed to be shown as a visual aid for interpretation. However, the examiners probably relied somewhat inattentively on Google Image Search and did not integrate the original image, but an edited image of the revolution that had been ranked highly by hits. In this alteration of the image, the revolutionaries were assisted by a large battle robot in storming the palace. This probably rather irritating or even amusing faulty image selection, probably did not prevent the students from passing their history exam, but it demonstrates clearly the importance of ensuring the provenance of the source to ensure authenticity when working with third-party data. In the case of image sources in particular, it is also important to pay attention to licensing regulations, otherwise things could get expensive as well as embarrassing. Sources: • https://www.smh.com.au/education/history-transformed-in-vce-exam-2012111429ce7.html • https://9gag.com/gag/a5W3W4r 54. Chatty confetti shower At the carnival parade even the confetti was talkative. At a carnival parade in 2016 in a small town in Thuringia, not only small colorful round snippets fell out of the confetti cannon, but also snippets that were inscribed with sensitive personal information and thus spoke for themselves. A hospital had used the carnival to improperly dispose of its old patient files, and the shredded files were scattered on the street. Unfortunately, the pieces of confetti were still big enough that names, addresses and telephone numbers were partially readable. The incident caused an outcry and drew the attention of the Thuringian data protection commissioner who issued an administrative order and a fine. This scary tale illustrates the importance of deleting data properly. Personal data must be permanently erased when the purpose for which it was processed has ceased to exist and there are no retention periods. In this context, deletion is understood as the complete rendering of this data unrecognizable. Sources: • https://www.datenschutz-notizen.de/konfettiregen-aus-dem-krankenhaus-recycling-vonpatientenakten-0413884/ • https://www.welt.de/regionales/thueringen/article152088666/Untersuchungen-zu-Konfettiaus-Patientenakten-dauern-an.html 55. Who am I? Is the person wearing inconspicuous glasses and a trench coat? A public institution wanted to measure the health of its employees and designed a detailed survey with questions about their experience at work, mental load and satisfaction. The survey participants were guaranteed anonymity. Many employees took advantage of the offer and experienced an unpleasant surprise when their supervisor asked them about specific answers they had given in the survey. What happened? The survey did not ask for names, but it did ask for a lot of detailed information and demographic data. Participants' responses were then analyzed and reported in such small groups/organizational units that derivable characteristics such as gender and job function made it possible to accurately match individuals to their responses. Thus, the promised anonymity was not maintained and many complaints were made to the responsible data protection officer, not to mention awkward conversations with the respective managers. Particularly when evaluating small samples, attention must be paid to "derivable" personal data. Even if the name is not recorded, a combination of different data can make a person identifiable to others. In this case, the survey is no longer anonymous and the EU Data Protection Regulation must be observed - which requires, among other things, different declarations of consent and processing steps/technical and organizational measures than anonymous data. Sources: • personal communication 56. Blurred Man on the Moon This incident left a lot of room for interpretation In 2006 the Goddard Center's Data Evaluation Laboratory was scheduled to close. It was the last institute with equipment still able to read the original moon landing recordings in SSTV format. The closure prompted a search for the original tapes in NASA's archives. However, as it turned out in 2009, these had either disappeared or even been dubbed over by the early 1980s, as was common practice at the time. Only a few other photos or videos could be found. The modern known recordings of the moon landing mostly originate from the conversion into the improved NTSC format for television sets. However, in the conversion from SSTV they simply filmed a screen in most cases, which resulted in strong losses in contrast, brightness and resolution. The fact that the original tapes have not been found to this day, caused a wave of conspiracy theories. This story illustrates the importance of properly archiving meaningful research data. Characteristics of archiving are complete transfer, immutability, access restriction, and documentation of access and relocation of the data. If necessary, the data must be transferred to new media if the old ones have become obsolete. Sources: • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes • https://www.zeit.de/online/2009/30/mondlandung-aufnahmen-verschwunden • https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verschw%C3%B6rungstheorien_zur_Mondlandung#Verschwu ndene_Filmaufnahmen 57. Binding Contracts With the concluding list they simply promised too much In this example, informed consent for a study prepared with model declarations used wording that enumerated the permitted uses and promised restriction to those uses. Specifically, the text contained the statement "data will be processed exclusively in previously described ways." Since the (anonymized) publication was missing from the list, the data could not be published. The very strict wording was binding for both parties. It makes sense to have all legally binding texts proofread by third parties with relevant experience before they are used, in order to check that the legal consequences of the wording actually correspond to the desired effects. The post-use conditions of the collected research data should be formulated in such a way that they do not stand in the way of publication or further use of the data in other projects for the purpose. Sources: • https://doi.org/10.18450/dataman/98 64. That’s me, indeed! How educational commitment became the community's undoing. Danielle documented her transition to another gender through hormone replacement therapy via a video journal and published it on YouTube under the Standard YouTube License. Images from her videos, along with those of other trans individuals, were used to train a facial recognition software, and they were featured in the associated scientific publication. The video data from this publication was made available to other researchers through a Dropbox link. Danielle was not informed about the use of her video material in this study and its dissemination, and she would have never consented to it. She and the trans community fear significant discriminatory consequences if trans individuals could be identified through facial recognition in the future. In research projects involving socially sensitive topics, and data material or personal data, an ethics committee should be consulted in the planning phase. This committee will conduct an impact assessment and, among other things, provide recommendations for extensive measures to protect involved individuals and the concerning communities, or even advise against a specific study. The reuse, publication and sharing of copyrighted data requires a usage/license agreement between the copyright holder and the data users. When processing personal data, informed consent must be obtained from the individuals concerned, and comprehensive data protection regulations must be observed. To the extent possible, this data should be anonymized or aggregated and made accessible to third parties only through suitable access restrictions, such as certified and specialized repositories by the means of data usage agreements. Sources: • https://doi.org/10.1109/BTAS.2013.6712710 • https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/22/16180080/transgender-youtubers-ai-facialrecognition-dataset • https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221113772 • https://algorithmwatch.org/de/wenn-datensaetze-grundrechte-verletzen/ 65. Metadata against oblivion More than a side note? In the Duke August Library in Wolfenbüttel, the theologian and church historian Prof. Ulrich Bubenheimer is researching the history of the Reformation. In the process, he also looked through a collection volume containing several chronicles. This volume is indexed in the library database with only a few descriptive data. Marginal notes that occur in various parts of the book are not evaluated in any detail. Prof. Bubenheimer was surprised when during his research on the Reformation he came across annotations that originate from the pen of Martin Luther. The manuscript was quickly analyzed and provided insights into topics that Luther dealt with during his time in Erfurt. After evaluating the handwritten marginal notes, the chronicle volume was described with the corresponding metadata and can thus be found by "Luther researchers" from now on. In the meantime, the entire book has been digitized and can be viewed online, enabling further evaluations. Finding the marginal notes from Luther's pen shows how important it is to deposit meaningful and evaluable metadata in databases. Only in this way can the potential of research data and objects be made visible and tapped into. The digitization of analog materials also offers the opportunity to reach a larger audience and to network research results. Sources: • https://idw-online.de/de/news547606 • https://www.zeit.de/news/2013-08/19/literatur-notizen-von-martin-luther-entdeckt19163807 • http://opac.lbsbraunschweig.gbv.de/DB=2/SET=3/TTL=1/MAT=/NOMAT=T/CLK?IKT=12&TRM=766213218 66. Deadly Checkbox That's one way to achieve incomparable numbers. Between 2003 and 2017, maternal mortality in the USA appears to have doubled. A shocking trend, given the fact that the indicator has been in global decline throughout the 20th century. What happened? Originally the US counted cases of maternal death based on the cause of death listed on death certificates. However, the procedure overlooked relevant cases. The WHO recommended the introduction of a "pregnant" checkbox on the death certificate to correct this "underreporting". Since 2003, all deaths with the box ticked have been included in the nationwide maternal mortality statistics. States rolled out the new procedure one by one over a period of 15 years. The staggered introduction of the new recording methodology means that data on maternal mortality in the US cannot be meaningfully compared to previous data points in the time series or to data from other countries. Only content-identical indicators may be summarized across different geographical units. If a coding scheme (especially that of a long-running international data collection) is changed, it is essential to clearly communicate the application of new elements. In particular, structural breaks should be implemented at the same time within an observation area. Alternatively, the old and new measurement methods can be applied in parallel for a transitional period to simplify aggregation between different geographical units. Sources: • https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0j74zfs • https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240068759 • Vgl auch: Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2020: estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2023. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO 67. Clean Science The rocky road to the truth could have been avoided. In 2018, behavioral scientist Zoé Ziani challenged the results of Francesca Gino's study on feelings of moral and physical impurity after career networking events in her dissertation. As Gino was a successful professor at Harvard Business School, Ziani's criticism was judged to be inappropriate, selfrighteous and inflammatory and she had to rewrite her paper. It was only after much effort from data forensics and lawyers that Ziani was able to prove in 2023 that Gino's findings were tantamount to data falsification. Data had been falsified in some places and good values had been replicated to fill in blank spots in others. Consequences of this incident included the demand for reproduction of old results, journals requiring data sanity checks, pre-registrations placing value on negative results too as well as open data becoming more established as a standard. Researchers should document the collection and processing of the data as well as the analysis process. This enables a critical reception of the results and the original data and further research based on them. Sources: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Ml9mrFwqE • https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino • News zur Ursprungsstudie: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/karriereteilnehmer-netzwerk-treffen-fuehlen-sich-dreckig-a-991230.html • Ähnliche Fälle in Deutschland 1: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HansUlrich_Wittchen#Fälschungsvorwürfe • Ähnliche Fälle in Deutschland 2: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Förster#Kontroverse 68. The good old programming script Who was Svenja? For years, a script titled `collate_samples_SvenjaMax.py` was used in a working group for data analysis. The script had been brought intp the group years ago by a doctoral student named Max and had been repeatedly expanded and adapted. In order to follow the guidelines of good scientific practice, the plan was to publish the script together with the next publication. To do this, it first had to be clarified whether all authors agreed to this, as the script had not yet been provided with a license. The former employees were painstakingly identified and asked for permission. However, they were only unable to identify Svenja since not even Max could remember who she was. Source code/script code also counts as research data and should be documented, archived and published with an appropriate license. Dedicated versioning systems such as GitLab as well as classic commenting of source code can be used for documentation. It is essential that it is clear who created or changed the script and when. Quellen: • persönliche Kommunikation 69. The Robbed Thief How a Call of Nature turned into a Criminal Case. Hans was working on a study about a drug for geriatric health issues. All data (contact information, interviews, health records, medication records) from nursing home residents were stored at the research institute under strict security protocols and could only be processed on-site. With a bit of trickery, Hans managed to bypass the security measures and made local copies of all the files on his laptop. One day, Hans was working in a café. While he used the restroom, he left his laptop unattended and without a screen lock on the table. A person, who specialized in spying on data in public spaces, took the opportunity to copy the data, including personally identifiable information (names, addresses) in order to sell the information to criminal third parties. This story highlights extremely concerning researcher behaviour with regards to data protection: the careless handling of sensitive data in public spaces, the storing of personal data together with other research data, and the bypassing of security measures. A key element for handling personal data safely is establishing a security-focused research culture. Researchers should be thoroughly educated and trained in data protection, especially regarding their responsibilities and obligations. This includes ensuring the security of local data, for example, through encryption and access control, as well as being fully informed about the risks of working in public spaces. If personal data is essential for analysis, pseudonyms should be used to reduce the risk of reidentification. To increase the commitment to agreed principles and measures, these can be formally documented. Sources: • Zellhöfer, D. & Weber-Wulf, D. (2023). Identitätsdiebstahl. In Class, C. B., Coy, W., Kurz, C. et al. (Eds). Gewissensbisse - Fallbeispiele zu ethischen Problemen der Informatik. Edition Medienwissenschaft. transcript Verlag. S. 91-94. DOI: 10.14361/9783839464632 • Zellhöfer, D. & Weber-Wulf, D. (2013). Gewissensbits – wie würden Sie urteilen? Fallbeispiel: Identitätsdiebstahl. Informatik Spektrum 36 (3): 333-335. DOI: 10.1007/s00287-013-0709-9 70. Getting ahead of the curve The sudden change gave the virus an unfair advantage. Germany in April 2021: in the midst of one of the strongest Covid-19 waves in Germany, the Robert Koch Institute decided to change the data format for the output of daily vaccination figures without prior notice. This made waves, especially among science and data journalists, as it meant that web scraping programs set up to use the old output format no longer worked overnight. As a result, the RKI data could no longer be crawled automatically and produced nothing but error messages. In this case, the sudden change in format and content led to considerable extra work for the journalists affected and to outages on websites and dashboards that millions of people were using to find out about the pandemic. Data providers should be proactive and provide advance notice of upcoming format changes. For example, publications can be made available in the old and new formats for a transitional period so that data users can adapt. Good planning of the data schema and the data formats to be used in advance also helps to avoid unnecessary major changes in the course of the research process. Quellen: • Open Data Anti Patterns - Hase und Igel: https://github.com/transportkollektiv/opendataantipatterns/blob/main/patterns/formataenderung.md • https://x.com/datentaeterin/status/1380203124858699778