Data Exchange Protocol

 

 

The TC4 Science Team (ST) is composed of the participating instrument and theory team Principal Investigators (PIs) and Co-Investigators, Project Scientists, Program Managers and Project Managers, and satellite instrument investigators.

The rapid exchange of data assists in-field collaborations, identifies instrument problems via inter-comparisons, and helps flight planning by identifying new and interesting geophysical problems, and determining whether or not flight objectives are realized. Therefore, data acquired during the field deployment will be archived within 24 hours after collection and will constitute a preliminary archive. Some exceptions for unique operation may be granted on a case-by-case basis by the project management.

Updated/re-calibrated versions of the archived data sets are due within six months after the field deployment, and the TC4 data sets will be released to the public 12 months after the deployment. Throughout this process the members of the ST will have free access to and use of those archived data sets. Prior to the public release of each data set, it will not be provided to persons outside of the ST without the expressed approval of that data set's PI.

Likewise, the TC4 ST members will have access to related satellite data products from the NASA DAACs at GSFC and LaRC, or other mechanisms defined by the participating satellite instrument teams for distributing preliminary data products. Since TC4 data products will be used to validate the satellite measurements, early versions of the satellite data products are expected to be preliminary and improved upon in subsequent releases.

Publication schedules and ST meetings will be announced. Manuscripts submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals should involve all ST members involved in the preparation of the measurements and their interpretation in the manuscript. In particular, ST members responsible for generating a measurement or a data product must be offered the right of co-authorship. This right should be used only if the contribution is essential. Presentations of unpublished manuscripts in public meetings are subject to approval by the co-authors.

The central archive machine is espoarchive.nasa.gov, and the procedures and file formats for that archive are described at http://espoarchive.nasa.gov/archive/. There will also be an in-field mirror of that archive to/from which data can be submitted/retrieved. Additionally, some instrument groups will use external archives for their preliminary and final data sets, subject to the access and use terms of this protocol.