Managing Your Data: Assign Descriptive File Names

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

2. 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. 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. Assign descriptive file names • 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 Project Name File Format Year Site name What was measured 4

5. Courtesy of PhD Comics: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php 5

6. Organize files logically • Make sure your directory system is logical and efficient Biodiversity Lake { Biodiv_H20_heatExp_2005_2008.csv Experiments Biodiv_H20_predatorExp_2001_2003.csv … { Biodiv_H20_planktonCount_start2001_active.csv Field work Biodiv_H20_chla_profiles_2003.csv … Grassland Images courtesy of S.E. Hampton, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis 6

7. References • Hook, L.A., S.K.S. Vannan, T.W. Beaty, R.B. Cook, and Bruce E. Wilson. 2010. 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:10.3334/ORNLDAAC/BestPractices-2010 • Borer, E.T., E.W. Seabloom, M.B. Jones, and M. Schildhauer. 2009. Some Simple Guidelines for Effective Data Management. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 90:205—214. doi:10.1890/0012-9623-90.2.205 • Cook, R.B., R.J. Olson, P. Kanciruk, and L.A. Hook. 2001. Best practices for preparing ecological and ground‑based data sets to share and archive. Bull. Ecol. Soc. Am. 82(2): 138‑141. 7

8. 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. Recommended Citation Cook, R. 2012. “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:10.7269/P3F18WNR