Data Errors Reporting Protocol

Background

The fundamental objectives of U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Program are dependent upon the cooperation of scientists from several disciplines. Physicists, biologists, and chemists must make use of data collected during U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank field programs, historical retrospectives and laboratory experiments to further our understanding of the interplay of physics, biology, and chemistry. Our objectives require quantitative analysis of interdisciplinary data sets and therefore data must be exchanged between researchers. To extract the full scientific value, data must be made available to the scientific community on a timely basis and via a consistent user interface.

The U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Program subscribes to the U.S. GLOBEC Data Policy, see U.S. GLOBEC Data Policy, U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dyanmics Report Number 10, February 1994. A critical and unique component of this data policy is that data from our program will be made available when the data are useful. Oftentimes, this means that the data may not yet be "final" (i.e. without known errors) and still be accessible via our data system. Indeed, it is expected that data will be made available as soon as possible, and that investigators who use the data will help identify any errors or problems. Of course, anyone who does use the data must follow our Data Acknowledgement Policy.

The protocol below defines the steps you should take if you determine that an error does exist in one or more of our data sets.

Protocol

The DMO needs to know about any data problems since the data may be served from the DMO office rather than by the scientific investigator (e.g. the event logs). The DMO will clear any data changes with the responsible scientific investigator before any changes are made.


Last modified: September 14, 1998