Graduate School & Fellowship Application Resources: Data Management

Data management doesn't have to be hard! Here are three easy steps to improve your data management.

1. Follow the 3-2-1 rule.

• 3 copies of your files
• 2 copies can be onsite (e.g. computer and external hard drive)
• 1 copy must be offsite (e.g. cloud backup service or located elsewhere)

2. Name things carefully not carelessly.

Include information on the who, what, why, or how in file and folder names. This will help you and others be able to quickly identify your files. One of the easiest ways to do this is to choose 2 or 3 important attributes and string them together. Below are two examples. The first only contains one attribute (content) and the second contains three (year, class, content) and is much more useful.

Final.docx  vs. 2019_BIO211_Final.docx

3. Save for the future!

Can you open  the files you created today 1-year from now? In 3-years? How about after graduation? If you are using special (or expensive) software programs then there's a high chance that the file formats are proprietary - i.e. can only be used by that special (or expensive) software. Since you'll probably want to open your files later it's a good idea to export them to open and/or very common file formats. Look for "save as" and "export" options when saving!