What a standard makes out of a process? Data-documentation standards and their consequences to process documentation

Purpose Data-documentation standards offer diverse means to represent processes, an aspect of datasets that generally lack adequate documentation for their reuse. This study aims to generate new knowledge of to what extent data-documentation standards cover and conceptualise data-related processes (i.e. paradata). Design/methodology/approach A set of nine major general domain-agnostic research data standards (Data Package, DataCite Metadata Schema, Dublin Core, OAI-ORE, PREMIS CERIF, DDI, PROV, NetCDF) were analysed using close reading of standards documents to identify elements relevant to representing diverse aspects of data-related processes. Findings A review of popular standards shows that they vary in what processes are represented: many focus on curatorial history and a part on capturing selected aspects of processes for enabling specific types of prioritised forms of (re)use of data. Also, the representations vary and range from complex data models to limited attribute data with parallel variation in their forms and granularity. The variations affect the capacity of standards to accommodate different ontological and epistemic perspectives to processes and their features. The findings underline how the choice of a particular standard – and standardisation as an approach for generating process documentation – has major consequences to what aspect of a process ends up being documented and from what perspective, with consequences to the usefulness and affordances of produced descriptions. Originality/value To the knowledge of the authors, no previous research on to what extend common data documentation standards accommodate paradata exists.