Technical and practical aspects

Answer toA: It is recommended to store research data in encrypted and secure locations, such as on network drives maintained by the research institution or the cloud service servers or specialised data repositories. It is important to make regular backups and to comply with data protection requirements, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Answer: For metadata input and compliance with standards such as, Dublin Core, DataCite, is the responsibility of the researcher or his/her authorised person in the project.
Repositories usually offer metadata input fields that allow metadata to be entered according to some metadata standard(s). It is recommended to consult the repository description and documentation to find out which metadata standards are supported by a particular repository. Repositories most often only provide basic field checking, less often comprehensive checking, so it is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that the fields are complete.
If you need to enter metadata for larger amounts of data or for specific sectors, you can use metadata editors or export data in standard formats (XML, JSON).
If a specific solution for structuring the metadata is needed, it is recommended to consult the data curator or the technical support of the repository.

Answer: Both the length of the file name and the depth of the folder structure are related to the technical limitations of the file systems. On Windows operating systems, especially older ones, there is a default limit of 260 characters for the full path to a file, this includes all folder names and the filename itself. If this limit is exceeded, the file may become uncopiable, undeletable or unopenable. Such problems often occur during copying, archiving or processing. In newer versions of Windows (10 and 11), it is possible to extend this file path, but this does not guarantee that the file will work in all programs.
Recommendations:
  • Use short, concise and clear titles, up to 20-30 characters
  • No more than 5 folder levels
  • Avoid unnecessary repetition and detailed information in the file name – it is better to leave it for metadata or documentation
  • Structure folders to reduce the overall file path length
Examples
  • Not recommended:
    C:\Projects\Projects\Pilot_2025\Data\Analysis\ExperimentsPilot\Pilot_results_analyse_experiments_v3.xlsx
  • Recommended:
    C:\Projects\Projectives_2025\Data\results\v3.xlsx

Answer: The use of spaces in file names is not technically forbidden, but it can cause problems in some programs, command-line tools or web systems where spaces are interpreted as command delimiters. This can make automated processing or file sharing with other users and systems more difficult.
Recommendations:
  • Avoid spaces, especially in the context of automation or data processing
  • Use an underscore (_) or a hyphen (-) to replace spaces, for example: results_2025.xlsx or experiment-1.xlsx
  • Maintain a common approach throughout the project

Answer: In file names, the (.) is particularly important because it separates the file name from its extension, which indicates the file type, e.g. .pdf, .txt or .xlsx. If multiple periods are used in a file name, operating systems and programs may misread the file extension. This can lead to situations where the file is not opened or processed correctly.
In addition, other special characters such as / are not recommended for file names:?"<>|#%[]^~…, because operating systems or programming languages use them for other functions. They can also interfere with file synchronisation in cloud services such as Google Drive or OneDrive, or cause problems in online applications and scripts.
Recommendations:
– Do not use periods in the middle or at the beginning of the file name, except before the extension
– Avoid special symbols – they may be reserved for system commands or read incorrectly
– Use hyphens (-) or underscores (_) instead, e.g.: experiment_1-v2.xlsx

Answer toA: It is possible to use special characters in file names, such as Latvian diacritics (ē, ū, š, ķ, etc.) or symbols from other languages (æ, ø, å, etc.), but this can cause problems when processing and moving files between different operating systems, programs and scripts. Some systems or tools may not support a particular character encoding (e.g. ASCII), which may result in files not being saved correctly, not being found or not opening at all. This is particularly important in automated workflows where an unexpected character can disrupt the script. Also, the use of special characters can make it difficult to use files internationally, where the characters of the respective languages may not be easily accessible and understood.
Recommendations:
  • Avoid using special characters in file names, especially if the files will be processed by scripts, used in particularly outdated software or moved between different systems
  • Instead, use only letters without diacritics (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-) and underscores (_)
Not recommended: results of pilot analysis set3.xlsx
Recommended: results_v3.xlsx
  • Unicode UTF-8 character encoding standard is widely used where possible and allows the display and exchange of text in different languages

Technical and practical aspects

Answer toA: It is recommended to store research data in encrypted and secure locations, such as on network drives maintained by the research institution or the cloud service servers or specialised data repositories. It is important to make regular backups and to comply with data protection requirements, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Answer: For metadata input and compliance with standards such as, Dublin Core, DataCite, is the responsibility of the researcher or his/her authorised person in the project.
Repositories usually offer metadata input fields that allow metadata to be entered according to some metadata standard(s). It is recommended to consult the repository description and documentation to find out which metadata standards are supported by a particular repository. Repositories most often only provide basic field checking, less often comprehensive checking, so it is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that the fields are complete.
If you need to enter metadata for larger amounts of data or for specific sectors, you can use metadata editors or export data in standard formats (XML, JSON).
If a specific solution for structuring the metadata is needed, it is recommended to consult the data curator or the technical support of the repository.

Answer: Both the length of the file name and the depth of the folder structure are related to the technical limitations of the file systems. On Windows operating systems, especially older ones, there is a default limit of 260 characters for the full path to a file, this includes all folder names and the filename itself. If this limit is exceeded, the file may become uncopiable, undeletable or unopenable. Such problems often occur during copying, archiving or processing. In newer versions of Windows (10 and 11), it is possible to extend this file path, but this does not guarantee that the file will work in all programs.
Recommendations:
  • Use short, concise and clear titles, up to 20-30 characters
  • No more than 5 folder levels
  • Avoid unnecessary repetition and detailed information in the file name – it is better to leave it for metadata or documentation
  • Structure folders to reduce the overall file path length
Examples
  • Not recommended:
    C:\Projects\Projects\Pilot_2025\Data\Analysis\ExperimentsPilot\Pilot_results_analyse_experiments_v3.xlsx
  • Recommended:
    C:\Projects\Projectives_2025\Data\results\v3.xlsx

Answer: The use of spaces in file names is not technically forbidden, but it can cause problems in some programs, command-line tools or web systems where spaces are interpreted as command delimiters. This can make automated processing or file sharing with other users and systems more difficult.
Recommendations:
  • Avoid spaces, especially in the context of automation or data processing
  • Use an underscore (_) or a hyphen (-) to replace spaces, for example: results_2025.xlsx or experiment-1.xlsx
  • Maintain a common approach throughout the project

Answer: In file names, the (.) is particularly important because it separates the file name from its extension, which indicates the file type, e.g. .pdf, .txt or .xlsx. If multiple periods are used in a file name, operating systems and programs may misread the file extension. This can lead to situations where the file is not opened or processed correctly.
In addition, other special characters such as / are not recommended for file names:?"<>|#%[]^~…, because operating systems or programming languages use them for other functions. They can also interfere with file synchronisation in cloud services such as Google Drive or OneDrive, or cause problems in online applications and scripts.
Recommendations:
– Do not use periods in the middle or at the beginning of the file name, except before the extension
– Avoid special symbols – they may be reserved for system commands or read incorrectly
– Use hyphens (-) or underscores (_) instead, e.g.: experiment_1-v2.xlsx

Answer toA: It is possible to use special characters in file names, such as Latvian diacritics (ē, ū, š, ķ, etc.) or symbols from other languages (æ, ø, å, etc.), but this can cause problems when processing and moving files between different operating systems, programs and scripts. Some systems or tools may not support a particular character encoding (e.g. ASCII), which may result in files not being saved correctly, not being found or not opening at all. This is particularly important in automated workflows where an unexpected character can disrupt the script. Also, the use of special characters can make it difficult to use files internationally, where the characters of the respective languages may not be easily accessible and understood.
Recommendations:
  • Avoid using special characters in file names, especially if the files will be processed by scripts, used in particularly outdated software or moved between different systems
  • Instead, use only letters without diacritics (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-) and underscores (_)
Not recommended: results of pilot analysis set3.xlsx
Recommended: results_v3.xlsx
  • Unicode UTF-8 character encoding standard is widely used where possible and allows the display and exchange of text in different languages