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General guidance for data submission
Electronic Data and Information may be submitted online or offline. Please submit data by:
| web | through the online data catalogue |
| email | to the Data Officer. The limit for online submission is 5 MB |
| surface mail | on DVD, CDROM or hard drive |
| file transfer | ftp or website for GeoData to collect |
Data should be zipped if being transferred online, e.g. using WinZip.
All data submitted must have an accompanying metadata record. Metadata is likely to have been submitted in advance of submitting the survey data and information, or can be added using the online tool. More advice on metadata can be found in the metadata pages.
Data and Information Formats
Data and Information is incorporated into the COWRIE database, which handles spatial and attribute information, images, processed data, reports etc. The technical organisation of the database is described in the DIMP that covers basedata, survey data, time series data etc.
Preferred formats are provided in the Data and Information matrix. Most data can be translated into appropriate formats for storage although providing it in appropriate formats will help. Data will be maintained in its submitted format at this stage. Metadata will provide the records of the formats and software required to use the data. Wherever possible parameters should be described in detail and using parameter codes for field headings.
Filenames should be limited to 8 characters and should contain no blanks. Derived from and updated from UK Data Archive
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Preferred format
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Acceptable format
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Problematic formats
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Statistical data
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SPSS - portable (.por) or system (.sav) file
XML
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STATA; SAS (export format or version 7/8 dataset - with formats library where applicable); delimited text (tab delimited or comma separated)
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Fixed-width (undelimited) text format
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Database data
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Delimited text with SQL setup (tab delimited or comma separated). XML
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ACCESS, dBase, Filemaker Pro, FoxPro, Paradox, SIR (export file)
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Fixed-width (undelimited) text format
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Spreadsheet data
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Delimited text (tab delimited or comma separated) XML
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Excel, Lotus, Quattro Pro. Formulae should be retained.
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Textual data
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Rich text format (RTF), XML, SGML, plain text
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Microsoft Word, HTML, WordPerfect, hard copy i.e. paper (if this is the only medium on which the textual data is available)
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CAQDAS Packages (e.g. NUDIST, NVivo, WinMax)
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Images
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TIFF, PNG
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GIF, BMP
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Adobe PDF
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Vector images
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DXF, SVG
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Adobe Illustrator
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Spatial data
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ESRI ArcGIS Interchange/Export format (.e00), ESRI ArcGIS Shape files
GML
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MapInfo Interchange format (.mif/mid)
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MapInfo (.tab)
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Video
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MPEG-1, MPEG-4
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Quicktime
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Sound
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MP-3
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MS Wave(.wav)
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Documentation
(e.g. reports, questionnaires, codebooks, survey specifications, project description, etc.)
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Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, Rich text format (RTF)
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SGML, HTML, XML, WordPerfect
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Hard copy (paper)*
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