Intern:Project data management/PACES

Contribution for the research programm PACES of AWI 2008-2012, submitted 2007-11

Towards a sustainable framework for preserving and sharing scientific content Hannes Grobe, Wolfgang Hiller, Ana Macario, and Hans Pfeiffenberger

AWI has been involved over the last 15 years in the innovative development and implementation of systems for archiving and distributing data from earth and environmental sciences. As an integral part of a large-scale scientific infrastructure operated by Helmholtz, these repositories are also providing their services to external data contributors such as research projects funded by DFG, BMBF and EU and several international programs. With the slogan "The value of data lies in their use" and having the recent OECD recommendations(1) in mind, AWI will further enhance its leading position in the next decade as a trusted earth sciences data provider in a global network. As an example of a high visibility project which is of strategic importance to AWI and the research community, AWI will become a major data provider of the IPY's data legacy.

To date, AWI has developed and implemented a single architectural framework for archival, distribution and mining of all types of digital objects from all research disciplines. Sustainable open source software is used for building preservation and control access services as well as portal functionality for a centralized provision of digital content harvested from distributed repositories. The development of customizable metadata portals will satisfy discipline specific needs and thus avoid redundant archives and web interfaces. Show cases for building discipline-oriented portals are being currently implemented in the framework of projects funded by IODP and EU and will also serve the GRID technology with content.

To improve the flow of data from investigators to archives, research data must become part of the established publication process consisting of papers, journals and libraries. This attempt will certainly support data management efforts concerning the solution of its major problems (availability, credit, description, quality, versioning). The workflow is defined, the policy drafted and the infrastructure is operational in the show case DFG project STD-DOI, demonstrated by various World Data Centers with AWI as an initiator in a leading role and the TIB as agency and library. As a final step, crucial for the full integration and acceptance, AWI has started negotiations towards the establishment of an open access Earth Science Data Journal with the EGU publisher Copernicus. If successful, data citations will soon be counted as peer-reviewed and thus be part of the citation index in an increasing number of publication sources.

Data repositories are far from being „long-term established“ but the definition of generic rules and policies for trusted archives is under progress in various national and international projects. AWI as an institute at the leading edge will submit its repository to auditing on long-term operation and content availability in order to become a certified data archive as soon as certification standards are available. From the technical side, a trusted archive status is accomplished by the implementation of (1) persistent identifiers for each digital object, (2) standardized metadata description formats, and, (3) an Open Access oriented policy. By further developing the spectrum of capabilities and infrastructures in cooperation with other data providers, AWI will serve the current and future needs of the earth sciences research community with focus on oceans and pole regions.

(1) Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public Funding: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/61/38500813.pdf