Organizing Your Data#

Understanding the Structure

MaterialsCommons organizes data in a hierarchical structure:

  • Project: The top-level container for related research

  • Studies: Subdivisions within a project that represent specific experiments, simulations or research phases

Example Directory Structure#

Before uploading to MaterialsCommons you should organize your research data. Below is an example of how to organize your local files:

ProjectName/
├── README.md           # Project overview.
├── Study1/
│   ├── README.md       # Study overview.
│   ├── study1.xlsx     # Spreadsheet with metadata to be processed
│   ├── raw_data/       # Original, unprocessed data
│   ├── processed_data/ # Analyzed or transformed data
│   ├── metadata/       # Documentation specific to this study
│   └── scripts/        # Analysis scripts and code
├── Study2/
│   ├── README.md       # Study overview.
│   ├── study2.xlsx     # Spreadsheet with metadata to be processed
│   ├── raw_data/
│   ├── processed_data/
│   ├── metadata/
│   └── scripts/
└── project_docs/       # Project-level documentation

Directory Structure Summary#

Each project follows a standardized layout:

  • A root README.md file containing the project overview

  • Multiple study folders (e.g., Study1, Study2), each containing:

    • Study-specific README.md

    • Excel spreadsheet for metadata

    • raw_data folder for original data

    • processed_data folder for analyzed results

    • metadata folder for study documentation

    • scripts folder for analysis code

  • A project_docs folder for project-level documentation

Note

This structure organizes your research data by:

  • Placing your research project data in a top level directory

  • Creating separate directories for each study

  • Keeping all study data together.