Document file naming standards

Why Manage Research Data? Some benefits of managing research data are: Find and understand data when needed Project continuity through researcher or staff changes Organized data saves time Reduces risk of lost, stolen, or mis-used data Comply with funder and journal requirements Allows for easier validation of results Data can be shared, leading to collaboration and greater impact In addition, well managed and documented data make it easier to write up research results for publication.

Have Research Data Management questions? The Princeton Research Data Service can help! Visit researchdata. Any major changes to a file can be indicated by whole numbers, for example, v01 would be the first version, v02 the second version. When draft documents are sent out for revision, they should return carrying additional information to identify the person who has made the changes.

The lead author would then add those changes to version v01 and rename the file following the revision numbering system. Include a 'version control table' with each important document, noting changes and their dates alongside the appropriate version number of the document.

If helpful, you can include the file names themselves along with or instead of the version number. Agree who will finish finals and mark them as 'final. Useful file names: are consistent; are meaningful to you and your coworkers; and allow you to find the file easily It is useful if your department agrees on the following elements of a file name: Vocabulary — choose a standard vocabulary for file names so that everyone uses a common language.

The value of the Title, Author, and Comments in your documents are automatically added to SharePoint when you upload your document and these fields are used in search results. The Author and Comments fields must be edited in Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel , but you can change the Title for your document in the intranet by editing the document properties.

You do not need to use Dates in your file names. Every document has a Created By and Modified By date in the system, so dates are usually not needed as part of the name of a document. All file names must be unique within a folder or library, so you might need to add a date to your file name only if you have two documents that must have the same name and you need to distinguish between the two.

Don't add version numbers to file names. We have versioning turned on in SharePoint, so if you want to publish an updated version of a document, just upload it with the same name as the previous version and the system will place the new version on top of the old version. Old versions are not found during searches, but you can examine old versions of a document by [[Viewing Version History]]. Lexington St.