Organizing Your Research Data

Organizing Your Data

Kristin Briney, PhDData Services Librarian

justgrimes, https://www.flickr.com/photos/notbrucelee/8016192302 (CC BY-SA)

http://retractionwatch.com/2014/01/07/doing-the-right-thing-authors-retract-brain-paper-with-systematic-human-error-in-coding/

FILE ORGANIZATION & NAMING

Dan Zen, http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/5551831155/ (CC BY)

File Organization

• What?– Keeping your files in order

File Organization

• Why?– Easier to find and use data– Tell, at a glance, what is done and what you have

yet to do– Can still find and use files in the future

File Organization

• When?– Always!– Get in the habit of putting files in the right place

File Organization

• How?– Any system is better than none– Make your system logical for your data• 80/20 Rule

– Possibilities• By project• By analysis type• By date• …

Example

• Thesis– By chapter• By file type (draft, figure, table, etc.)

• Data– By researcher• By analysis type

– By date

File Organization

• How?– Don’t forget to write your system down!• Front of your research notebook• In a README.txt document with your digital files• On a print out by your computer

http://retractionwatch.com/2014/01/07/doing-the-right-thing-authors-retract-brain-paper-with-systematic-human-error-in-coding/

File Naming Conventions

• What?– Consistent naming for files– Also useful for physical samples

File Naming Conventions

• Why?– Make it easier to find files– Avoid duplicates– Make it easier to wrap up a project because you

know which files belong to it

File Naming Conventions

• When?– For a group of related files (3 to 1000+)– May need different conventions for different

groups

File Naming Conventions

• How?– Pick what is most important for your name• Date• Site• Analysis• Sample• Short description

File Naming Conventions

• How?– Files should be named consistently– Files names should be descriptive but short (<25

characters)– Use underscores instead of spaces– Avoid these characters: “ / \ : * ? ‘ < > [ ] & $– Use the dating convention: YYYY-MM-DD

Example

• YYYYMMDD_site_sampleNum– 20140422_PikeLake_03– 20140424_EastLake_12

• AuthorLastName-Year-Title– Smith-2010-ImpactOfStressOnSeaMonkeys– Hailey-1999-VeryImportantDNAStudy

WHAT TO DO FROM HERE

Chris Hoving, https://www.flickr.com/photos/pcrucifer/2433274595 (CC BY-ND)

Data Services

• uwm.edu/libraries/dataservices

• Data Services Librarian– Kristin Briney

Thank You!

• This presentation available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license