What is
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This Guidance About?
This guide will describe the types of information that should be included within a README file. READMEs are useful documents that include metadata relevant to your research project and assist secondary users in understanding the contents and structure of your research materials.
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Essentially your README is a place to store descriptive information about your research throughout the life of your project. With everything in one location it is easy to get a snapshot of your project and its files. It’s also simple to pull these details into a record within a data repository – just copy and paste the information from your README straight into the repository record!
What
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Should be
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Included in a README?
In general, a README for data management should include the following information:
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A README should provide enough information for a user to understand the contents of your project folder(s). We recommend creating a README at the very start of your project to capture these pertinent details. It will save you a lot of time in the end.
What
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Format is
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Recommended for a README?
Since the README is a text document, we recommend sharing the final version as a .txt or .pdf for long term preservation and access.
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