README.txt template file

About the Readme file

Your curator will send you a for you to customize with every dataset you submit to the repository. This file gives users insight into your data, facilitates the FAIR Principles, and ensures we have the appropriate metadata to connect the research data to you, your funder, journal publisher, and other work. If you already have existing documentation, such as coding sheets and data dictionaries, you should provide them along with the file.

How to use the Readme Template

• Save and make a copy of the file.

• We include help text in angle brackets < > You should delete the helper text before submitting.

• If a particular section does not apply to your project, delete it or note that it is not applicable.

• Once complete, this file will be uploaded to the dataset record and finalized by the library team.

For more information on readme documentation related to research data publishing, we recommend Cornell’s Guide to write “readme” style metadata, on which we based our template. We are also here to help.