Table 1. Data Management for Global Change
Research Policy Statements - July 1991
- The U.S. Global Change Research Program requires an early
and continuing commitment to the establishment, maintenance,
validation, description, accessibility, and distribution of high-quality,
long-term data sets.
- Full and open sharing of the full suite of global data sets for all
global change researchers is a fundamental objective.
- Preservation of all data needed for long-term global change
research is required. For each and every global change data
parameter, there should be at least one explicitly designated archive.
Procedures and criteria for setting priorities for data acquisition,
retention, and purging should be developed by participating
agencies, both nationally and internationally. A clearinghouse
process should be established to prevent the purging and loss of
important data sets.
- Data archives must include easily accessible information about
the data holdings, including quality assessments, supporting ancillary
information, and guidance and aids for locating and obtaining the
data.
- National and international standards should be used to the
greatest extent possible for media and for processing and
communication of global data sets.
- Data should be provided at the lowest possible cost to global
change researchers in the interest of full and open access to data.
This cost should, as a first principle, be no more than the marginal
cost of filling a specific user request. Agencies should act to
streamline administrative arrangements for exchanging data among
researchers.
- For those programs in which selected principal investigators
have initial periods of exclusive data use, data should be made
openly available as soon as they become widely useful. In each case,
the funding agency should explicitly define the duration of any
exclusive use period.