Guidelines for the Creation of Analysis Ready Data

Globally, there is an increased need for guidelines to produce high-quality data outputs for analysis. No framework currently exists that provides guidelines for a comprehensive approach to producing analysis ready data (ARD). Through critically reviewing and summarising current literature, this paper proposes such guidelines for the creation of ARD. The guidelines proposed in this paper inform ten steps in the generation of ARD: ethics, project documentation, data governance, data management, data storage, data discovery and collection, data cleaning, quality assurance, metadata, and data dictionary. These steps are illustrated through a substantive case study that aimed to create ARD for a digital spatial platform: the Australian Child and Youth Wellbeing Atlas (ACYWA).