Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A data manager who ran all consistency checks on a clinical trial dataset before lock, named in the trial report's data-management section
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A researcher who eyeballs their own data for obvious errors is doing routine self-check, not data validation in the role sense
Editorial commentary
A data validator is a contributor whose role is to check the integrity, accuracy, completeness, and schema conformance of a dataset before it is used, deposited, or published — running range checks, plausibility tests, cross-source comparison, and metadata verification. Under the NISO CRediT Standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022), this work is captured under the ‘Validation’ role, and often overlaps with ‘Data curation’ where the same contributor also organises and annotates the data being checked.
A research office most often sees the data validator role named explicitly in the contributor statement of a large dataset publication or a clinical dataset’s data-management section — for example, a data manager credited by name for having run consistency checks on a trial dataset before database lock. The role is distinct from a researcher’s own routine self-check of their own results, which is ordinary scientific practice rather than a distinct, creditable contribution: what makes validation a named role is that it is systematic, often independent of data generation, and disclosed as a discrete contribution.
How it relates to nearby CRediT roles
- vs. Open-data contribution — open-data contribution covers depositing and documenting a dataset for reuse; validation covers checking it is correct, and the two frequently co-occur on the same dataset without being the same task.
- vs. Statistical consultancy — a statistical consultant advises on analytical method; a data validator checks the data itself, before or independent of any analysis.
- vs. Reproducibility reviewer — a reproducibility reviewer typically re-runs an analysis pipeline against a finished dataset; a data validator checks the dataset’s own integrity, usually earlier in the workflow.
References
- NISO CRediT Standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022).
- RDA DMP Common Standard v1.1.
Also known as
Data quality reviewer · Dataset validator
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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