Abstract

PANGAEA's datasets require abstracts. An abstract provides description of the data publication.

Dataset abstracts should contain a concise and method-oriented description of the observation, collection or measurement, namely: the data was collected.
 * what,
 * where,
 * when,
 * how,
 * why

During data submission, the abstract should be inserted into the "Description" section of the submission form or uploaded as an "Attachment" in form of a text file.

Do's and Don'ts

 * Make sure the abstract contains following set of information (not necessarily in that order):
 * WHAT: what observations were made, what parameters were measured, what samples were collected, what experiments were preformed, what was modeled?
 * WHERE: what is the geographical coverage, where was the data collection done on the Earth? The precision of this information should be made in context of the spatial extent of the dataset, e.g.: global, sea, ocean, continent, country, region, ...
 * WHEN: what is the temporal coverage, when was the data collection done? The precision of this information should be made in context of the temporal extent of the dataset, e.g.: geological era, centuries, millennia, decades, months, days, ...
 * HOW: what were the methods used for the data collection? Describe the methods concisely.
 * and WHY: what was the purpose of the data collection? This will have important implications for reusability of the data, and its possible limitations, for other purposes.
 * Avoid interpretation of the results, this should not be a part of data publication.
 * If you use acronyms, spell them out.
 * Abstract may contain necessary references. In that case, include the article DOI or a full citation if no DOI is available).


 * Many metadata items are listed in the metaheader. Like that, they are both human and machine readable and do not have to be part of the abstract. Instead, these metadata (if not already a part of the dataset), should be listed separately, as a comment of the submission or in a simple text file attached to the submission. These include for example:
 * Contact information of the PI (listed in the Parameter table)
 * Link to the cruise report, chief scientist
 * Geolocation (part of Event)

Supplementary data publications
If the dataset is associated to a manuscript, the abstract of the dataset needs to be data specific. You can use an extract of your manuscript abstract if it includes a part with a reference to the data.

Data collection abstract
Data collections require an overall abstract. In addition to that, each of the individual datasets may have a separate abstract.

Examples

 * A dataset with an abstract:
 * Abstract for a data collection:
 * Abstract for a data collection with additional abstracts for individual data sets: