Contact your Liaison Librarian for help on documentation or organization.
Assistance offered:
Documentation is your way of explaining procedures, and your project to other people. It must be clear to people both inside and outside your research group. There should also be explanations of terms to explain the research for people outside the field. Sharing data for long term usability would be impossible without documentation.
Two types of documentation:
Methods- information relative to how data was collected, how data should be interpreted, limitations on data use, information on confidentiality, access and use conditions
Metadata- Various levels of data which provide context to your project and data sets
Examples: Variable names and descriptions, explanation of codes, explain missing data points
File Naming
Following a file naming scheme will allow you to find files easier and faster and avoid duplication of files. It will also make it easier for people not involved in the project to locate information.
File names should be:
File organization is key to finding the information quickly. It should make sense for all team members.
Some options for file organization:
File Type | File Formats |
Text | XML, PDF/A, HTML, ASCII, UTF-8 |
Still Image | TIFF, JPEG 2000, PNG, JPEG/JFIF, BMP, GIF Highest resolution available |
Geospatial | Shapefile (SHP, DBF), GeoTIFF, NetCDF |
Audio | WAVE, AIFF, MP3, MXF Highest resolution available |
Video | MOV, MPEG-4, AVI, MXF Highest resolution available |
Database | XML, CSV |
Tabular Data | CSV |
Web Archive | WARC |