As you progress with your research you will collect many files and documents. Some will be those you create yourself and others will be other research papers and data you need to refer to. It is important that you develop good file management practice from the start to enable you to handle all of the data you acquire effectively.
File naming
Files should be saved within an appropriate file structure.. You should consider whether to use a big flat folder for all your files or a hierarchical tree structure. Generally some sort of a hierarchy will be better as it enables you to find group similar files together and to locate what you need more easily. A complex structure means you can use shorter file names within the folder, but these may be less meaningful outside of that structure - for example if you provide data to a supervisor or collaborator. There is also the possibility that some files may have the same name, even though their content is different.
To avoid this try to use names that contain more details such as
- what you are doing with the file
- project or experiment name
- date of that version of the file.
Version control
It can be useful to save your document under a new name if you add extra information to it or manipulate the data, then if you decide you don't want the amendments you make, or want to go back to original data before performing calculations etc, yiou still have the oroginal to go back to.
Develop a system for file naming that works for you and use it consistently.
Backing up your files
As well as using new filenames for different versions of your files it is essential that important data is backed up. This might mean adding it to a secure shared drive on one of the University systems, keeping copies on USB drives or in the cloud. However, you still need to practice good data management and get rid of older versions of files and take care when storing any personal data within your files.
