Data and Information Submission at the Virginia Coast LTER
Example 1: Do's and Don'ts
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DO
Organize data in a way that an observation is meaningful even if it is reordered.
For example, the column formatted data file:
Station Month Year Day Temp
HOGI 10 1996 01 12
HOGI 10 1996 02 14
HOGI 11 1996 01 21
HOGI 11 1996 02 19
contains all the data needed to interpret a line on that line.
DON'T
Don't organize data in a way that sorting will make it impossible to
understand the data. For example:
Station Month Year Day Temp
HOGI 10 1996 01 12
HOGI 02 14
HOGI 11 1996 01 21
HOGI 02 19
If sorted on Month, would be:
Station Month Year Day Temp
HOGI 02 19 <- No way to know during what month!
HOGI 02 14
HOGI 10 1996 01 12
HOGI 11 1996 01 21
DO
Submit data in a uniform format. For example:
Station Month Year Day Temp
HOGI 10 1996 01 12
HOGI 10 1996 02 14
or
Station Month Year Day Temp
HOGI,10,1996,1,12
HOGI,10,1996,2,14
DON'T
Submit data where each observation is in a different format! For example:
Station Month Year Day Temp
HOGI Oct 96 01 12
HOGISL 10 1996 02 14
or
Station, Month, Year, Day, Temp
HOGI, Oct, 96, 1, 12.0
HOGISL, 10, 1996, 2, 14