Data organisation is the practice of structuring and naming your files so consistently that anyone — including you, six months from now — can find and understand them. Clear folders, descriptive file names, and a note explaining the data are the whole secret.

The cruellest trick research data plays is on your future self. The file named “final_v2_REAL_use-this.xlsx” made perfect sense the day you saved it — and is a mystery a month later. Good organisation is a kindness you do for the person you’ll become when the deadline looms.

The habits that save you

  • Consistent file names — e.g. 2024-03-15_survey_raw.csv: date, content, status, every time.
  • A logical folder tree — separate raw data, analysis, and outputs; never edit your raw data.
  • A README — one plain note explaining what the files are and how they fit together.
  • Version clarity — date-stamps beat “final”, “final2”, “reallyfinal”.
Name it so it sorts itself
Date your files year-month-day — 2024-03-15, not 15-03-24. Why? Because then your computer sorts them into perfect chronological order automatically. One small naming choice, and your folder organises itself forever. Little conventions like this are the whole craft.

Protect the raw data

One rule deserves to be a reflex: never alter your original data. Keep raw data untouched in its own folder and do all your work on copies. If an analysis goes wrong, you can always return to the source — lose the raw data and there is no going back.

Try this
Open a folder of your own files. Could a colleague find a specific one in under a minute and know what it contains from the name alone? If not, rename three files using a clear date-content-status pattern, and feel the difference.

🔗 A friendly free guide: Digital Curation Centre — How-to Guides

Organised data still has to be kept safe — from loss, and from the wrong eyes. On to Data Storage & Security.

© FRELIP, released under CC BY 4.0. Linked resources remain under their own licences. Curated by the FRELIP Open Courseware editorial team.

Última modificación: viernes, 5 de junio de 2026, 08:17