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Managing Research Documents

This guide includes effective naming techniques for documents, citation and pdf management, note taking tools, alerts and feeds, and journal management apps.

Document Storage

Box and Google Drive are available for free to University of Chicago users. Dropbox also offers free storage to users. Google Drive, Box and Dropbox offer similar features with key differences. Below are some of them. 

More information about key differences between Google Drive and Box

Google Drive

  • 5 GB Storage
  • Real time collaborating on documents

Box

  • Unlimited Storage
  • Allows Group ownership of folders
  • Extensive Document Preview Formats

Dropbox

  • limited storage for free
  • Widely used for sharing documents

Document Naming Conventions

Naming element to consider:

  • Consistent
  • Unique
  • Scannable
  • In a logical order

Contact Information

Jennifer Hart
Librarian for Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics
Ryerson Physical Laboratory 156
773-702-7569
Email Jenny

Document Organization

To keep documents in a logical order it is important to create a consistent scheme for file naming

Possible information to include:

  • Project name or acronym
  • Research/author
  • Version number of files
  • Associated date (YYYYMMDD or YYMMDD)