Research Guides: Research Data Management at Carleton: Version Control

Decisions to Make Before Starting Your Project

Which storage option is best for me?

How should I organize my files?

It is essentially a big folder that allows you to store as many files as you like (on your Carleton account). It will remember all of your edits and changes through its version history for files made in Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets.
The version history for Google Drive is very intuitive. It allows you to see exactly what your file looked like at different points in time and how it compares to the file today.
Ability to add custom descriptions to files allows you to more efficiently search.
Searching to find your items (Title, Document, Description/Keywords): helpful video
- Naturally, Google Drive has an amazing search algorithm that will search Titles and Text inside of every document. It can also search the description field. If you click on a file and look at its info, you can add a description. This description essentially allows you to add keywords that you will want to search by later.
- You can search by title, contents, and other items.
- This link shows advanced ways to search as well.
There are two different desktop applications (File Stream or Backup & Sync) that can automatically backup your files. You only need to use one of them.

Google Drive
Backup your files here. Log in with your Carleton account.
Google Drive for desktop
Google Drive for Desktop allows you to stream your Carleton Google Drive to your personal computer, but this only works on a Student account. This is recommended for your student account because it frees up disk space and network bandwidth, and it decreases sync time. It doesn’t store the files on your computer (unless you specify) but streams them from the web as a network drive.
Real Time Presence in MS Office
This new feature, included in Drive File Stream, will help you avoid version conflicts when editing Microsoft Office files in Google Drive. Real-time presence will let users know if another user is editing a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file stored in Drive File Stream, in real time.
Google Drive: Transferring or Archiving Google Drive Files and Folders (ITS Knowledgebase)
You are unable to directly transfer files from your Carleton Drive to an outside Google Drive, but instead, you will have to download and re-upload your files using Google Takeout.

This is also a large folder structure like Google Drive with practically unlimited storage on your Carleton account.
The desktop application (which can only be used on a personal computer) can automatically backup your files efficiently and easily.

The version history for Dropbox does not show a comparative view like Google Drive. But, it does allow you to download snapshots of what your file (or folder structure) looked like up to 30 days prior to today.
The only way to customize a file or folder is by its name, there is no way to add custom metadata/keywords/tags to it.

Dropbox
Sign up for this free service that syncs your documents across multiple computers and mobile devices.
Dropbox Desktop App
It will automatically sync all of your Dropbox files (and folders) to your computer. Anything you put into the Dropbox desktop folder will almost instantly sync to your Dropbox account online. See more for warnings...
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Warning 1: Files will only sync when you save them. So if you want a bigger version history, you are going to want to save more often. Google Docs, on the other hand, will practically save every change automatically.

Warning 2: Two people editing the same file at the same time will cause conflicts in the file. If you want to edit at the same time, it is recommended that you use Google Docs to edit your paper and Google Drive to backup your work.

Warning 3: This is only something you will want to do on a personal computer. On a lab computer, you will only be able to use the online Dropbox user interface. This interface is not as robust as the Google Drive online interface.
Keeping Your Dropbox Files After Graduation
Transfer ownership of your files from your Carleton account to your personal account (thanks to ITS).
1. Sign in to Dropbox.
2. Select the Sharing tab from the sidebar on the left.
3. Scroll to the Folders in your Dropbox section.
4. Click the Share link to the right of the shared folder.
5. Select make owner from the pull-down menu and confirm your choice.

Microsoft Word Online
- It’s similar to Google Docs, but it’ll require you to make a Microsoft Account. (Instructions here on Carlpedia)
- It’s hard to beat the simplicity of the Google Docs interface, and the MS Word Online interface is pretty similar to the desktop version, but with some fewer features.

Carleton doesn’t pay for an institutional account. So, if you need more than 5 gigabytes of storage you will have to pay a monthly fee.

OneDrive for Mac
OneDrive for Windows
This storage option allows you to work with your OneDrive files even when you're offline. Anything you put in this folder will automatically sync to your OneDrive online account.

GitHub is primarily used to store your computer programs in an open source community.
It is very effective when you have multiple users working on the same program.
The Version History will show changes in files and file structure updated every time you (manually) push to your remote repository/folder.
It also allows your programs to be split off the main branch, and then to be merged later on.

Knowledge of the command line is recommended (the third party user interfaces, aren’t great)
It was designed for programs and isn’t great at storing large files. They are also known to delete repositories (folders) that are larger than 1GB (you would receive a reminder).

Install Git
Make an account on GitHub (We recommend you use a personal email so that you can keep your account after graduation)
Command Line (or install a user interface below):
1. Windows: Install a Linux Subsystem for Windows.
2. Mac: Use the built-in Terminal.

1. Git
Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency
2. GitHub
- This link opens in a new window
GitHub provides a Desktop user interface (as a substitute for the Git command line), and a website which can be used to backup your software online.
3. Linux Subsystem for Windows
These are the recommended command line tools for Windows users who are interacting with Git.

GitHub Desktop
If you are not going to be using the command line (on any operating system), this is the recommended user interface.