Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names Robert Cook Oak Ridge National Laboratory Section: Local Data Management Version 1.0 October 2012

2 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 Overview Users will learn how to construct unique file names that can be readily found and identified File names should reflect the contents of the file and include enough information to uniquely identify the file These practices have been written for data files, but also pertain to other types of files Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pictures 2

3 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 Relevance to Data Management Clear, descriptive, and unique file names may be important later when your data file is combined in a directory or FTP site with your own data files or with the data files of other investigators. File names that reflect the contents of the file and uniquely identify the data file enable precise search and discovery s. 3

4 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 Use descriptive file names Unique Reflect contents ASCII characters only Avoid spaces Provide an explanation of the convention used to name files Bad: Mydata.xls 2001_data.csv best version.txt Better:bigfoot_agro_2000_gpp.tiff Site name Year What was measured Project Name File Format Assign descriptive file names 4

5 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October Courtesy of PhD Comics:

6 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 Biodiversity Lake Experiments Field work Grassland Biodiv_H20_heatExp_2005_2008.csv Biodiv_H20_predatorExp_2001_2003.csv Biodiv_H20_planktonCount_start2001_active.csv Biodiv_H20_chla_profiles_2003.csv … … Organize files logically Make sure your directory system is logical and efficient 6   Images courtesy of S.E. Hampton, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis

7 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 References Hook, L.A., S.K.S. Vannan, T.W. Beaty, R.B. Cook, and Bruce E. Wilson Best Practices for Preparing Environmental Data Sets to Share and Archive. Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A. doi: /ORNLDAAC/BestPractices-2010 Borer, E.T., E.W. Seabloom, M.B. Jones, and M. Schildhauer Some Simple Guidelines for Effective Data Management. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 90:205—214. doi: / Cook, R.B., R.J. Olson, P. Kanciruk, and L.A. Hook Best practices for preparing ecological and ground ‑ based data sets to share and archive. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Am. 82(2): 138 ‑

8 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 Other Relevant Modules For more information about best practices for file naming in a laboratory setting, see Local Data Management – Managing Your Data: Lab-based Approaches to Data Management 8

9 Local Data Management - Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names; Version 1.0 October 2012 Cook, R “Local Data Management – Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names.” In Data Management for Scientists Short Course, edited by Ruth Duerr and Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich, Federation of Earth Science Information Partners: ESIP Commons. doi: /P3F18WNR Recommended Citation