Data Quality in Materials Science: A Quality Management Manual Approach

Abstract

Experimentalresearch data in the materials science domain is often insufficiently described with regard to metadata and frequently displays an incoherent form of documentation. These circumstances often hinder current and future researchers significantly in reuse and comprehension of data. To support researchers during the archiving and provision of materials science research data (incl. supplementing material), a Quality Management Manual (QMM) approach as an established QM tool is proposed in this paper. Quality-assurance of experimental research data and the perpetuation of good scientific practice in provision and archiving research data are examined before the QMM approach is applied in a case study. The preliminary results indicate that QMM allows to provide practitioners basic guidelines which support integrity, availability and reusability of experimental research data in materials science for subsequent reuse.