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OAII Data Management Guidelines 

    The National Science Foundation Arctic System Science (ARCSS) program supports a multidisciplinary research effort of the Arctic environment.  Within the many different ARCSS data collection efforts, it is vital to facilitate data archival and an easy mechanism for data exchange among researchers interested in the Arctic system.  This data protocol is a guideline for OAII/ARCSS investigators to ensure proper data formats, meta data, and efficient data archival.  The research programs in the Ocean-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions (OAII) section of ARCSS primarily deal with the oceanographic environment and the surrounding interfaces with the atmosphere, bottom, shoreline and surface ice.  It is a common goal to have OAII scientific research use the best scientific methods that are based on standardized and community-accepted measurements.

Data Management

    All data collected by ARCSS/OAII projects are required to be submitted to the ARCSS Data Coordination Center maintained at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).  It is the responsibility of the Principal Investigator(s) of each funded ARCSS/OAII research project to develop a data management plan that will assure the collection of quality data that will be available to co-PI's, OAII collaborators, ARCSS investigators and the scientific community in general.  The NSIDC will request data management plans from all funded research projects.  In general, data should be submitted to the NSIDC as soon as possible but all data must be submitted within two years after the collection of the samples or data reduction.  Large coordinated programs, e.g. SHEBA, may establish shorter time limits for sharing data within the program.

    In general, the data archiving process for a field project will begin with the submission of an "event log" (e.g. ROSCOP form) to the ARCSS data coordination center at NSIDC by the chief scientist or field project leader.  This event log must be submitted within three months of the conclusion of a field project and should list the times, locations, and responsible parties for all data collected.  All data submitted to the NSIDC must contain a meta data description as detailed in the Data and Information Formats section below.  The acceptable data format and media are described in the ARCSS Data Submission Guidelines on the ARCSS webpage at http://arcss.colorado.edu/data/proto.html.  Data not recorded on electronic media are also included in the data requirements to be placed in the NSIDC repository.

Data Exchange

    All data collected within ARCSS/OAII funded research is considered "community property."  Principal Investigators retain exclusive use of the data collected for one year after collection or data reduction.  It is highly desirable that basic "core" observations such as hydrographic and meteorological data be distributed in draft form to OAII collaborators as soon as possible.  After one year, data will be released to other ARCSS/OAII investigators.  Two years after data collection or reduction, the data will be made available to all other science users through the NSIDC.  Exceptions to these time frames must be referred to the ARCSS Program Manager and Project Chief Scientist.

    Note that the term "data reduction" applies to those types of data that are not produced shortly after sample collection.  For example, certain types of isotope analyses typically require several months for processing, depending on availability of instruments, etc.

Data Set Referencing

    Citation must be given to the investigators responsible for data collection in any and all publications using OAII data sets.  Reference to these data will include:

1. Reference to publications describing the data
2. Reference to the PI(s) if no papers are yet published

Data and Information Formats

    In coordination with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the PI(s) will include the following information (meta data) with each data set archived:

1. Platform(s) name
2. Project title(s)
3. Data collection date(s)
4. Chief Scientist or PI name
5. Data collection method(s)
6. Data analysis method(s)
7. Instrumentation used
8. Standardization or Quality Assurance / Quality Control procedures used
9. Data format or spreadsheet name
10. Data collection problems
11. Other related data sets
12. Conditions for use or citation
13. Data qualifications or warnings
14. Appropriate NSF Grant numbers
15. Sample repository locations (cores, biological)

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