RMP.4:1 - Problem Frame

Use this pattern when research material must remain inspectable, or when a colleague receives an apparent result but cannot recover how the work produced it. Begin by naming one examination the material should support and locating the records on which that examination depends.

For example, residents recorded downstream salinity during a thaw, but the reference reach could not be visited. Keeping the chart and a tidy folder is useful, yet it cannot restore the missing paired observation. A useful trace identifies the missing site and period, the reason, what the remaining observations can support and which comparison is no longer available.

This pattern governs the account of an inquiry’s actual course and retained material for a named examination. It connects plans, conduct, changes and the material used in a result. Its first useful result is a ResearchTracePackage: an inspectable account with the necessary records or reliable references to them, including limitations that change the receiving use. It need not be one archive or a copy of all the data.

“Criticism-ready” means that the material needed for the declared examination can actually be inspected under the stated conditions. A partial package can honestly explain why that examination is impossible. It cannot claim readiness for the examination its own limits prevent.

Enter while work is being planned or performed, before important records are lost. Alternatively, enter directly with inherited work and surviving material. There is no requirement to invent a new prospective protocol for completed work or to repeat RMP.1–RMP.3.

If an existing competent notebook, laboratory record or repository already supports the intended examination, use it. RMP.4 is needed when the conduct-to-material connection, change history or receiving limitation needs work. Evaluating the substantive explanation, reproducing a computation, issuing an access decision and performing new research remain separate contributions.