Research Data Management

A file naming convention is a standard framework for naming your files in a way that describes them accurately and consistently.  Establishing a file naming convention prior to starting a project can improve organization and accessibility for your research ream.

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Date Formatting
By choosing a standard format for dates, you can avoid confusion and error when naming files.  The ISO 8601 date format is an international standard for representing dates and times, which allows for unambiguous file description by ordering as year, month, & day:

Example: YYYY-MM-DD =  2021-05-02 or 20210502

Follow this link for more information about ISO date formatting: https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html 

Standard Characters
Only standard, alphanumeric characters should be used in file names. It’s good practice to: 

• Avoid special characters such as !, #, &, and *. This can impact how the file is displayed if moved between different operating systems.
• Avoid starting or ending your filename with a non-alphanumeric character such as a hyphen or period

Example: 20180502_survey_results.csv, rather than 201805.survey.results.csv

• Use underscores or capital letters to separate words in your file name:

Sequential Ordering

When using numbers in a file name to designate an order, use leading zeros for consistency and better readability.  Labeling a file with 01 will order files up to 99, and 001 will order files up to 999.

Renaming files individually can be tedious and lead to errors in naming conventions so it is best to find a free batch renaming tool instead.

Some research areas and disciplines have specific file naming practices that are preferable.  For example:

Structuring your data folders in a directory is useful for making it easier to locate and organize files and versions.  Evaluate the best hierarchy for organizing your files and determine if a deep or shallow hierarchy suits your needs better. If your team has multiple independent data collections, it's recommended to create distinct folders for each one. 

Directory top-level folders should include the project title, a unique identifier, and the date (year).  The substructure should have a clear, consistent naming convention, e.g., uniform conventions for labeling each run of an experiment, each version of a dataset, and/or each person in the group.