{"id":486,"date":"2019-02-07T21:23:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T21:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/?page_id=486"},"modified":"2025-02-18T19:09:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T19:09:05","slug":"version-control","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/manage\/version-control\/","title":{"rendered":"File Version Control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Keeping track of the versions of your data files will help you locate the correct file when you need it. A version control strategy may be different if you are part of a team than if you are working on your own and will need to account for how data files are synchronized between your workspace, storage\/backup systems, and shared file spaces.<\/p>\n<p>Version control can be done manually, through file naming (dates or version numbers (&#8230;v1, &#8230;v2) in the file name)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This provides a record of different files but relies on you taking the initiative. It does not tell you <em>what<\/em> was changed, unless you record that in the file, or in a readme.txt file.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In some cases, file sharing and collaboration software can track file changes (e.g., <a href=\"https:\/\/support.office.com\/en-us\/article\/restore-a-previous-version-of-a-file-in-onedrive-159cad6d-d76e-4981-88ef-de6e96c93893\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">OneDrive <i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"> <\/i><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/drive\/answer\/2409045?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&amp;hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Drive <i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"> <\/i><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/confluence.atlassian.com\/doc\/manage-files-139415.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Confluence wiki <i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"> <\/i><\/a>).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Check and confirm that the system is keeping track of file changes in the way that will meet your needs.<\/li>\n<li>Review the University of Iowa&#8217;s Information Technology Services <a href=\"https:\/\/its.uiowa.edu\/support\/article\/101025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">advice about cloud storage devices<\/a>, especially if your data is protected or restricted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are also version control tools, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/git.uiowa.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GitLab <i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"> <\/i><\/a> (a web-based Git-repository manager), that can be used to keep track of certain types of files (such as text files).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Check to see if such a tool will meet your needs and will work with the data you use.<\/li>\n<li>You may need to change your workflow in order to meaningfully integrate the system into your research and data handling practices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Best Practices<\/h3>\n<p>For a full set of guidelines, see the UK Data Service <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ukdataservice.ac.uk\/manage-data\/format\/versioning.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">File Versioning <i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"> <\/i><\/a> page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keeping track of the versions of your data files will help you locate the correct file when you need it. A version control strategy may be different if you are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"parent":471,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"pagetpl-data.php","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[113,89,107,105,117,106,112,63,111,114,116,115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2656,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/486\/revisions\/2656"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.uiowa.edu\/data\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}