Field note
Is a data dictionary the same as a codebook?
The terms overlap. Codebooks often emphasize research variables, value labels, and missing codes; data dictionaries may emphasize technical properties. Choose the content your reader needs and define your usage.
Where the terms overlap
Both documents answer the same question: what does this column mean, and how should a reader treat its values. Both carry field names, labels, definitions, allowed values, and a statement of what one row represents. In most handoffs the two words describe the same artifact written by different professions.
Where emphasis differs
Codebook usually signals a research register: variable labels, coded categories with value labels, explicit missing-value codes, and the population the data was collected from. Data dictionary usually signals a technical register: types, lengths, keys, nullability, derivations and source systems. The difference is which properties are assumed to matter, not which document is correct.
How this studio uses the terms
The studio enforces neither tradition. It gives one folio per field that holds the research properties and the technical ones together, plus a dataset context where you state which word you are using. Fill the properties your reader needs and leave the rest visibly empty.
Worked example from the sample project
The sample project would be called either name in different rooms. A research team reading it would call it a codebook, because it carries a population statement, coded categories with labels, and a missing code. An engineering team would call it a data dictionary, because it carries declared types, units and field roles. It is the same six folios either way.
That is the practical resolution: pick the word your reader uses, define your usage once in the dataset context, and then spend your effort on the content rather than the label. A reader who has to work out which tradition you follow before they can read a definition has already been slowed down.
What this does not do
- The product enforces no standard, template or repository vocabulary.
- It does not convert between one tradition's fields and another's.
- Choosing a name for the document does not change what it establishes, which is nothing on its own.
Do this in the studio
Say which word you are using and what you mean by it, once, at the top.
- Open the Dataset context station and state your usage in the purpose or source note.
- Keep the vocabulary consistent across every folio.
- Include both value labels and technical properties when your readers are mixed.
Open the studio at the Dataset context station