Best Practices for Data Management

• Use descriptive and informative file names.
• Choose file formats that ensure long term access.
• Track different versions of your documents.
• Create metadata for every experiment or analysis you run.
• Create a plan for how to transfer knowledge and data for a project for when it changes hands or someone leaves a team to prevent valuable data from being lost.
• Back-up your data in at least two, secure locations to avoid unintentional data loss and to protect your intellectual property.
• File or hard-drive corruption, and other unforeseen events can strike without warning. This includes, but is not limited to:
• Manuscripts, spreadsheets, and other files on your UHD office computers
• Qualtrics survey data (please download all data from the Qualtrics server)
• Data stored in cloud servers
• Data associated with laboratory instrumentation
• Scan data that currently exists in hardcopy-only formats and keep electronic copies
• When working on manuscripts, please save multiple, iterative drafts of your work and use Track changes to record contributions from collaborators on drafts.