The main goal of CORA.RDR is to store and preserve digital data.
Digital data related is stored in Datasets. You can understand each dataset in CORA.RDR as a computer folder that can contain files or other folders, just as any folder of your computer.
Digital data are stored in software-specific file formats. The choice of software and format depends on the intended use. For example:
Spreadsheets support formulas, sorting, and filtering — features not preserved in word processors.
Word processors support complex formatting such as page numbers and tables of contents.
However, saving a file in a program’s default format does not guarantee long-term usability. Risks include:
Dependency on specific software or software versions
Obsolescence of proprietary formats
Exclusive or expensive software required to access files
Loss of significant characteristics if the format does not support them
To minimize these risks and improve long-term accessibility, use file formats with a high likelihood of remaining usable for many years.
Here are some guidelines on which formats are accepted and the recommended folder structure for a dataset. We encourage that you enforce these guidelines on the datasets that you upload to CORA.RDR, but it is not a technical limitation, which means that in some case the guidelines can be bypassed with a justified reason.
For example, we do recommend using CSV for tabular data, but usually users use Excel files to store their tabular data. It may be possible that when transforming this Excel file into a CSV file, the original Excel loses an important part of format of the Excel, affecting to the quality of the data. In this case and others it may be reasonable to bypass the guidelines on the recommended file formats.
Preferred and Non-Preferred File Formats (DANS)
Preferred formats are file formats that DANS – based on international agreements – is confident offer the best long-term guarantees in terms of usability, accessibility, and sustainability. Deposits of research data in preferred formats will always be accepted by DANS.
Non-preferred formats are widely used in addition to preferred formats and are expected to remain moderately to reasonably usable, accessible, and robust in the long term.
General Guidelines
DANS believes that file formats best suited for long-term sustainability and accessibility:
Are frequently used
Have open specifications
Are independent of specific software, developers, or vendors
In practice, it is not always possible to use formats that satisfy all criteria.
It may be desirable to deposit certain original data in non-preferred formats because these are common usage formats (e.g., Esri Shapefiles, Microsoft Access databases, SPSS .sav files). In those cases, DANS requests you to deposit:
The original format and
A preferred format for long-term sustainability.
File Format Overview
This information is based upon this article and has suffered some modifications.
Text Documents
Type
Preferred Formats
Non-Preferred Formats
Text documents
PDF/A (.pdf), ODT (.odt), Microsoft Word (.doc), Office Open XML (.docx), Rich Text File (.rtf)
PDF other than PDF/A (.pdf)
Plain text
Unicode text (.txt)
Non-Unicode text (.txt)
Markup languages
XML (.xml), HTML (.html) + related (.css, .xslt, .js, .es), Markdown (.md)
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Programming languages
MATLAB, NetCDF, Text-Fabric, Python
—
Spreadsheets
Preferred
Non-Preferred
ODS (.ods), CSV (.csv)
Microsoft Excel (.xls), Office Open XML (.xlsx), PDF/A (.pdf)
Databases
Preferred
Non-Preferred
SQL (.sql), SIARD (.siard), CSV (.csv)
Microsoft Access (.mdb, .accdb), dBase (.dbf), HDF5 (.hdf5, .he5, .h5)
Statistical Data
Preferred
Non-Preferred
SPSS (.dat/.sps), STATA (.dat/.do), JASP (.csv/.html), R
SPSS Portable (.por), SPSS (.sav), STATA (.dta), SAS (.7dat, .sd2, .tpt), JASP (.jasp)