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Data Module #4: Keeping Your Data Organized

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Table of Contents

#1 - What is Research Data?
#2 - Planning for Your Data Use
#3 - Finding & Collecting Data
#4 - Keeping Your Data Organized
#5 - Intellectual Property & Ethics
#6 - Storage, Backup, & Security
#7 - Documentation

 

Questions? Contact Us!

  Aaron Albertson
Research & Instruction Librarian, Social Sciences
(651) 696-6530
albertson@macalester.edu
  Beth Hillemann
Research & Instruction Librarian, Social Sciences
(651) 696-6704
hillemann@macalester.edu

Module created by Aaron Albertson, Beth Hillemann, & Ron Joslin.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Version Control 101

Version Control 101: Tracking changes

In the course of your research you will often create multiple versions of your data files and will need a way to keep track of it all. Version control creates a trail that allows you to see what has changed from one version to the next. 

Use a systematic naming strategy to clearly identify the various versions of your files. One common method is a sequential numbering system as part of your file names (e.g. v01, v02, v03, etc.) It is also good practice to incorporate a date in the filename for version control purposes.

Keep earlier versions of your files, so that you and others can see the work that has been done. Best practice dictates that you keep at least the milestone versions of your files, ones where significant changes were made.



            Cartoon Source: https://www.eeweb.com/rtz/version-control