Manage Your Research Data: File Formats & Naming
This guide provides a primer on the fundamentals of data management.
File Naming & Formats
File Naming Best Practices
File naming conventions make life easier! It helps you find your data, helps others find your data, and helps track which version of a file is most current
- Use descriptive names that identify content and version without being too long (less than 25 characters).
- Name may also indicate researcher, equipment, lab, or date. This varies by the needs of the project.
- Avoid special characters like ! @ # $ % ^ & *.
- Add versions or dates into file names
- When using dates, use numerals and begin with the year and month. Example: 1/26/21 would be 20210126.
File Format Best Practices
Consider using file types that can be opened without proprietary software. These options include:
- Video images: MOV, MPEG, AVI, MXF
- Text: XML, PDF/A, HTML, ASCII, UTF-8
- Sounds: WAVE, AIFF, MP3, MXF
- Containers: TAR, GZIP, ZIP
- Statistics: ASCII, DTA, POR, SAS, SAV
- Images: TIFF, JPEG 2000, PDF, PNG, GIF, BMP
- Tables: CSV
- Databases: XML, CSV
- Geospatial: SHP, DBF, GeoTIFF, NetCDF
- Web archives: WARC
Challenges of File Management
- Inconsistently labeled files
- in multiple versions
- inside poorly structured folders
- stored on multiple media
- in multiple locations
- and in various formats