Using spreadsheet files for data storage and exchange can lead to the
corruption and even loss of information — sometimes without noticing it immediately. I came across this one too often so I could not help but write a rather long post about this topic.

Sharing datasets with other researchers or collaboration partners is a vital part of the knowledge exchange in a community. This might happen in big scale in form of supplementary material along with publications or in small scale within research groups. In this post I do not want to focus on what is actually shared, but how. Because a crucial but commonly underestimated element when sharing datasets with others is the used data format. Continue reading →