When you deposit data into the EIDC, we will discuss how your data can be transferred and how we will look after it in the long-term. This happens before any data is handed over and is formally agreed in a document called a Service Agreement.
What is a service agreement?
The service agreement is used to obtain all the essential information about the transfer of your data and documentation to the EIDC. It records both our responsibilities in keeping the data secure & making it publicly available and your responsibilities in providing the appropriate data and metadata in a timely manner.
You can see an example of a service agreement here.
Guidance on specific elements
Title of data resource
This is the title by which the dataset will be known. The title should be concise but as informative as possible, providing potential users with an indication of its content and (where appropriate) its temporal and spatial coverage.
This name will be permanently assigned to the data - when ingestion is complete, this cannot be changed.
Data category
NERC defines environmental data as individual items or records (both digital and analogue) usually obtained by measurement, observation or modelling of the natural world and the impact of humans upon it, including all necessary calibration and quality control. This includes data generated through complex systems, such as information retrieval algorithms, data assimilation techniques and the application of numerical models. However, it does not include the models themselves.
A few examples of what we mean by environmental data are
- Model output from running a numerical climate model
- Time series logged by environmental instrumentation
- Conductivity-Temperature-Depth casts from oceanographic cruises
- Groundwater chemistry and stable isotope measurements
- Butterfly abundance observations
Information Products are created by adding a level of intellectual input that refines or adds value to data through interpretation and/or combination with other data. They result from analysis or repackaging of data in such a way that has provided significant added value (intellectual or commercial), e.g. tidal predictions or Land Cover maps are not covered by the data policy.
Data files being provided
In this section you should detail the data file or files you are going to deposit. Filenames should be simple and can contain alphanumeric characters, underscores [_] and hyphens [-]. The filename should not contain spaces or other characters (e.g. *, &, %, ")
You should also indicate the total, uncompressed size of the data here. For example, if you are planning on depositing 10 csv files which are each 2Mb, the total size you should enter is 20Mb.
Web Map Service
If you require EIDC to create and supply a web map service (WMS) for the data, please state it here. WMSs are usually only applicable to spatial (map) data that is usually accessed, manipulated or analysed through Geographic Information Systems . For example, the Land cover map.
End user licence
Here, enter the licence under which the data will be made available. We endeavour to make data available under the terms of the Open Government Licence and encourage all depositors to do so.
However, your institution and/or funding agency may have alternative specific licensing requirements. We strongly recommend that you seek guidance from your funders on this issue.
Where a bespoke licence is required, you should state it here and you will be asked to provide the licence document when you deposit the data.
Use constraints
If there are any other constraints on the re-use of the data you should specify them here. For example, any copyright statements.