There are two general rules for file organization: Be consistent and Be descriptive. You want to make sure you and your colleagues can find anything you and they are looking for quickly. You'll need to figure out which specifics make the most sense to you and document your convention in a place everyone in your research group can follow. Here are some guidelines to include in your convention:
- Choose 2-3 descriptors to identify the project or collection the item belongs to and what the specific item is. Have a standard for your research group so things can easily be found and shared.
- Use capitals (camel case) or underscores instead of periods or spaces.
- Example: surveyResponseData.csv or survey_response_data.csv
- Use leading 0's when numbering your files. (000, 001...990, 991)
- Use no more than 30 characters whenever possible
- Use date format ISO 8601: YYYY-MM-DD
- The year first format makes it easy to find newest/oldest files. Wikipedia's ISO 8601 page provides additional information on the date and time standard.
- Avoid special characters in a file name. Common things to avoid are using spaces or ampersands (&).
- Document your naming convention so you remember what it is and your project collaborators know what it is.
Penn Libraries at the University of Pennsylvania has created a File Naming Formula Template to help you and your team create meaningful file names that follow best practices. Once you fill it out, print it out and put it in a prominent place in your workplace. If you work on collaborative files, appoint someone to hold your team accountable for their file naming practices.