Data OrganizationData Collection and Spreadsheets

Consistent Data Organization

• Spreadsheets (such as those found in Excel) are sometimes a necessary evil– They allow “shortcuts” which will result in your

data not being machine-readable

• But there are some simple steps you can take to ensure that you are creating spreadsheets that are machine-readable and will withstand the test of time

Spreadsheets

From NASA Environmental Data Management Best Practices Webinar: Bob Cook

Spreadsheet Best Practices

• Include a Header Line 1st line (or record)

• Label each Column with a short but descriptive nameNames should be unique

Use letters, numbers, or “_” (underscore)

Do not include blank spaces or symbols (+ - & ^ *)

More Spreadsheet Best Practices

• Columns of data should be consistent Use the same naming convention for text data

• Each line should be “complete”

Columns should include only a single kind of data• Text or “string” data • Integer numbers• Floating point or real numbers

More Spreadsheet Best Practices

Use Naming Standards & Codes

• Use commonly accepted label names that describe the contents (e.g., precip for precipitation)

• Use consistent capitalization (e.g., not: temp, Temp, and TEMP in same file)

• Standard codes – State Postal (VA, MA)– FIPS Codes for Counties and County

Equivalent Entities (http://www.census.gov/geo/reference/codes/cou.html)

Use Standardized Formats

• Use standardized formats for unitsInternational System of Units (SI)

http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/sp330.pdf

• ISO 8601 Standard for Date and TimeYYYYMMDDThh:mmss.sTZD

20091013T09:1234.9Z 20091013T09:1234.9+05:00

• Spatial Coordinates for Latitute/Longitude +/- DD.DDDDD -78.476 (longitude)

+38.029 (latitude)