Glossary of Terms

All complex subjects have their own terminology that sometimes makes it hard for new people to break into the field. This sometimes includes uncommon words, but more often than not a subject will have very specific meanings for common words - the discussion of errors vs mistakes in this video is a good example of this.

This glossary is a reference of some of the uncommon terms and specific definitions of more common words that you will encounter throughout Data Tree and your broader dealings with data.

Many of these definitions come from the course materials and experts that helped develop Data Tree. Others come from the CASRAI Dictionary. Those definitions are kindly made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Browse the glossary using this index

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Q

Qualitative data

This is data regarding 'qualities', which do not take the form of numbers.

Examples: interview transcripts, ethnographic materials, photos

Quantitative data

Data that is a measure of quantity. It comes in the form of numbers.

Examples: Measurements, sample analyses, observations and model outputs.

Quartiles

There are three quartiles. To find them, first sort the list into increasing order. The first or lower quartile of a list is a number (not necessarily in the list) such that 1/4 of the values in the sorted list are no larger than it, and at least 3/4 are no smaller than it.