Final lesson: Keeping your projects organized and documented

Organizing the miriad of files with data, source code, and results that make up a scientific project can be a challenge for many scientists. Good organization and clear documentation are key in order to guarantee the reproducibility of scientific results. In my lesson, I’m presenting a few strategies to keep scientific projects documented and well-organized in a computer, using simple tools that require no computational background.

Refs.:

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000424

Concept map:

Assessment questions:

1) Explain briefly the differences between data, src, and results folders.

2) The computer filesystem:

— can represent well any relationship between files

— can represent well only hierarchical structures

— can be used to our advantage in organizing our projects

3) How project documentation should be?

— for your eyes only

— such as other scientist or myself can reproduce my results

— as detailed as possible