Good files and folders practice

Computers often sort files alphabetically in the file browser. It is therefore a good idea to place the key information at the beginning of the file name. However, the sorting can be changed, e.g. to use the date the file was saved.

If you think you will need to find files by date, place the date the data were created at the start of the file name. The best date format is YYYYMMDDhhmm, as this ensures the files are sorted by year, then month, day and time. Use 24-hour format to avoid confusion about am/pm. When you use the date as the first element, the computer will be able to sort the files in correct chronological order, with either the newest or oldest first.

There are other ways to sort files besides by date. Regardless of the sorting principle you choose, you should adhere to these principles:

• Human & machine readable
• Name contains info on content
• "_" underscore used to delimit units of metadata
• "-" hyphen used to delimit words
• Avoid spaces & special characters
• Put anything numeric first

Last but not least, it's a good idea to strive for short filenames, as this can be beneficial when you, for example, conduct a framework analysis in NVivo.

It's a good idea to create a folder structure that reflects the type of data you will be working with. Additionally, having a certain level of detail in terms of subfolders can be advantageous as it may make it easier to conduct analyses on specific parts of your data. If you know you will be dealing with a complex folder structure, it can be beneficial to do this outside of NVivo. This could be in a Word document or by hand, for example.

Here's what a folder structure could look like.