Learning Outcomes:

1. Students will understand they have a range of file format options (and that each choice has implications for future use and access).

2. Students will understand that research files will change over time and will learn to use naming/storage conventions to “version” those files.

3. Students will gain familiarity with storage fundamentals and understand the range of threats to storage stability in the digital environments they are using for their research outputs.

Main ideas, concepts, takeaways from session:

• Learn how to archive particularly tricky files (like web pages!)

• Get introduced to software tools that can help with versioning, especially when you’re collaborating with others

• Learn how to weigh the pros and cons of different approaches to digital content structure

Abstract: 

That’s a nice dissertation you have there. It’d be terrible if something… happened to it.

As you work toward your degree, you store your files on your laptop, which is an ideal situation until your hard drive crashes and you find your last backup on your external drive is from four months – and two dissertation chapters – earlier.

Or, a year after defending your thesis, you find a great opportunity to re-contextualize and present your work at a conference. But, when you open your thesis folder on your computer, all you can find is the raw data. What started as an easy opportunity is now a week of sleepless nights editing files just to get back to the starting line.

Or, an email arrives. “We’re excited to tell you … As part of the acquisition, we will shut down your account in two weeks. It is your responsibility to retrieve your data from the service.” What promised to be the latest-and-greatest way to get your work done has now trapped your work.

Let this workshop help you avoid all these traps on the way to your ETD!

Audience: Graduate Students

Presenter(s): Heidi Winkler and Shelley Barba