The forum will cover the best practices for describing the why, who, what, when, where, and how of the data for your project. Topics covered will include descriptive file names, using standard terminology and consistent codes, matching data and metadata, data dictionaries, defining parameters, spatial location and date/time formats, methodology/processes, derivative datasets, dataset organization, file and project descriptions, storage formats, dataset identifiers, software/instruments used, metadata standards, version control, and data citations.