U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Data Reporting and Use 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 Dynamics 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 Acknowledgment Policy.

A very brief summary of the US GLOBEC Data Policy can be stated as follows:

  1. Data are to be made available to others in the program as soon as they are useful. If errors are found in the data after the data are made available, Investigators follow our Data Errors Reporting Protocol.

  2. Measurements which do not involve manual analysis and which would be useful to the science community must be submitted by the principal investigator within six (6) months after collection. Metadata should include any procedures that were followed to correct errors, remove noise, or otherwise modify the collected data.

  3. All other measurements and any standard analyses of these measurements must be available to the community within one year after collection.

While access to data can be restricted to PI's by way of passwording data sets, the US GLOBEC Georges Bank program has not seen the need to do it. In fact, they encourage the full and open access to all the data collected. Of course, anyone using these data must adhere to the US GLOBEC Data Acknowledgment Policy.

Please contact the Data Management Office if you have any questions or for help in accessing or using the data.

For additional information about serving your data and/or adding data to our system see Data serving, organization and retrieval.


Last modified: November 28, 2001