Data Policy Objectives

### Objectives of the U.S. GLOBEC Data Policy

The U.S. GLOBEC data policy consists of twelve concise statements addressing the collection, sharing, and archival of data within U.S. GLOBEC programs. Preceding these statements is text which seeks to provide some details and the motivation behind the specific policy statements. In setting forth these statements and establishing a data management office, the Steering Committee intends to increase the value of data collected in support of our mutual scientific objectives. The Steering Committee will not attempt to force an investigator to comply with these policy statements, but does wish to encourage and organize full and accurate communication. Plans for data collection must be communicated prior to execution of a field experiment to insure that all necessary data are collected. Data collected during field programs or in laboratory experiments, organized for retrospective studies, or produced from a model must be shared with the scientific community to maximize the scientific value of the data.

This document primarily addresses data collected during ship based field experiments. Extrapolation to other types of studies is expected. The policy statements anticipate that data will be organized about cruises; when measurements are not made aboard ship, the data should be organized about a period of time during which a sensible unit of data is collected. For instance, telemetered time-series data might be organized by month and near-shore benthic data might be naturally organized on a seasonal schedule. Investigators tend to organize their data into periods which are natural for their purposes. If a particular time period is appropriate for your study, then use this period for organizing and submitting data to the U.S. GLOBEC Data Management Office (DMO) while keeping in mind the need for timely submission. Investigators conducting retrospective studies should also recognize that the data organized for their purposes should in general be submitted to the DMO. Data culled from generally unavailable or difficult to access archives are of great value to the community. Model results which would be useful to the interpretation of field data or comparison with later model studies should also be included. Potential candidates for submission include annual or seasonal fields of flow, temperature, and salinity, Reynolds stresses, particle trajectories, initial/boundary conditions, and surface fluxes.