File & Folder Organization
Organizing your research files with a consistent system will make your data easier to understand, share, and archive. When you revisit your data files over time, it will take less effort to find what you’re looking for. There is no one right way to organize your files, but the key to a good system is that it should be descriptive and standardized, and to implement it consistently. When you’ve come up with a file organization and naming system, describe it in your research project’s readme file.
File Naming Conventions
Important pieces of information to include in filenames include things like:
- Short description of file contents
- Date created as YYYYMMDD or YYYY_MM_DD
- Project name or acronym
- Initials of researcher (if working on a collaborative file)
- Version number
- Other important metadata (such as location)
Other important practices in file naming are:
- Avoid special characters such as & , * % # * ( ) ! @$ ^ ~ ‘ { } [ ] ? < > –
- Try to keep names short, no more than 25–30 characters
- Separate parts of filename using underscore _ or by using CamelCase where every word is capitalized
- If you are writing your own code or working with code, avoid using spaces in file names
Example:
LakeMercury_TestData1_2024_10_01_TM_v3.csv
20241001LakeMercuryTestData1TMv3.csv
- LakeMercury = Project Name
- TestData1 = Description of file contents
- 2024_10_01 or 20241001 = data collection date
- TM = Tracy MacDern
- v3 = Version 3