Organise your Data¶

Overview

This is the Organising Data page, part of VU Tools → Yoda in the A-LIFE RDM collection.

This page covers:

How Yoda is structured
Organise before transferring data in Yoda

Supporting materials: Best Practices — Organising data
Authors: Irene Martorelli, Brett Olivier — Last modification: 2026-07-28 — Version: 0.2.0

How Yoda is structured¶

Yoda has two main spaces:

Research Space — the active working area where you store and share data during your project.
Vault — the long-term archive. When you submit a folder from the Research Space to the Vault, it becomes a read-only data package. The folder structure and file names become part of the permanent record.

Since the Vault only holds a frozen, read-only copy of your data, there is no need to organise anything there. This guide therefore focuses on organising your files and folders in the Research Space — the active area where your data can still be changed.

Organise before transferring data in Yoda¶

Yoda is a storage and archiving platform, not a file manager. We recommend organising your data locally before uploading, for a few practical reasons:

Renaming files after upload is slow — it is much easier to get names right before you start than to fix them once they are in Yoda.
Renamed files may not sync correctly — some tools treat a renamed file as a new file, so you could end up with a duplicate and the old file left behind.
Your folder structure becomes your archive — the folder you submit to the Vault is your data package. Inconsistent naming carries over permanently into the archive and any published record.

Follow our general guide for support on directory structure, file naming and file versioning. It applies to any tool or device, not just Yoda.

Best Practices — Organising data

What next?

Once your data is organised, continue to Step 3 — Transferring Data.