Domain Data Curation

Determining an appropriate repository for your research output

Data and related information generated from federally-funded research are expected to be shared publicly in a manner that enables reuse. Many digital data repositories exist throughout the world to steward and provision research output. They can be highly specialized, focusing on a particular type of data or scientific discipline, or they can be more general, accepting a wide variety of research output from literature to data and software from any discipline. Curated registries of research repositories such as the Registry of Research Data Repositories (Re3data.org) and FAIRsharing.org can help determine a suitable repository for sharing your data and software.

Repository types

Repositories are often categorized into three basic types based upon curation effort and disciplinary expertise:

1. Domain-specific repository

2. Institutional repositories

3. General repositories

General repositories typically curate data from a wide variety of disciplines to provide discovery and access to heterogeneous types of data. Institutional repositories are usually affiliated with a particular academic institution and may reside within the institutional library system. These repositories may be more familiar with the types of research conducted at an institution.

Domain-specific repositories possess disciplinary knowledge along with information management skills and are often closely tied to their research community. They can apply quality controls, create robust metadata enabling discovery and reuse, document provenance, and apply harmonization techniques that improve data interoperability. Their curation activities collectively ensure that data are Findable, Accessible, Reusable and Interoperable, or FAIR.

When considering possible repositories, you may want to include the following criteria in your decision:

1. Funder requirements: Does your funding organization or agency have specific repository requirements?

2. Type of data: Is there a domain repository that your research community uses for the type of data your project has produced?

3. Publisher requirements: Scholarly publishers now require data to cited with a DOI and may have a preferred repository list for author use. It is important to be aware of any journal-specific requirements for data deposition and citation prior to submitting manuscripts. If a journal is flexible, look for a domain repository that provides robust curation necessary for peer review, before seeking a more general one.

4. Repository certification: The sheer number of research data repositories coupled with high variability in curation services can make it difficult to select an appropriate facility. Third-party assessment of repository capabilities and services can assist in the process. A repository that has successfully completed a certification process such as CoreTrustSeal, is known to employ trustworthy data curation practices.

Data types served by BCO-DMO

BCO-DMO is a domain-specific repository, focusing on biological and chemical oceanographic data resulting from research conducted in coastal, marine, great lakes, and laboratory environments. We work closely with research communities to apply quality controls, create and curate robust discovery- and use-level metadata, and document provenance, thereby increasing data reusability.

Programs supported by BCO-DMO

BCO-DMO is funded by the US National Science Foundation to provide data management services at no additional cost to projects funded by:

• The NSF Oceanography Divisions:

  • Biological Oceanography Program

  • Chemical Oceanography Program

• The NSF Division of Polar Programs' Antarctic Organisms & Ecosystems Program (OPP; formerly PLR)

• NSF Ocean Acidification program (CRI-OA). Certain awards represent collaborations between OCE and other NSF divisions, eg., Division of Environmental Biology (DEB). NOTE: this is a legacy program that has sunset.

• NSF FSML: Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (part of Division of Biological Infrastructure, DBI).

• Long Term Ecological Research (LTER): LTER is a cross-cutting program at the Directorate/Division level (for example BIO/DEB, GEO/OPP, GEO/OCE, SBE/BCS) that funds research at oceanographic sites (GEO/OCE). BCO-DMO accepts ancillary or complimentary research output conducted at these sites. Core LTER research data can be directed to the Environmental Data Initiative (EDI) repository.

BCO-DMO staff members work with researchers funded by these NSF programs to ensure that their research output is in compliance with the current NSF OCE Sample and Data Policy (NSF 17-037).

If your project is not funded by an NSF program that BCO-DMO serves, there are additional repositories in the compiled list of recommended data centers below.

If your data fit within BCO-DMO's disciplinary scope, it may be possible to obtain data management services for non-OCE projects. These are typically prioritized after NSF OCE data and are on a fee-for-service basis. Costs are decided after review of the data. Please contact info@bco-dmo.org for more information.

Other recommended domain-specific repositories

Not all NSF-funded projects are supported by BCO-DMO. Additional recommended data centers include:

• For NSF OCE-sponsored physical oceanography projects, investigators are encouraged to contact the CLIVAR and Carbon Hydrographic Data Office (CCHDO) or archive their data directly with the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

• For marine geology, contact the Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance (IEDA) group hosted at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University.

• For projects supported by NSF Arctic Sciences Program (ARC) investigators, the Arctic Data Center which succeeds the Advanced Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (ACADIS), should be contacted. The Arctic Data Center is supported by NSF and is led by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California Santa Barbara, to develop and curate the NSF Arctic Data Center, an archive for Arctic scientific data as well as other related research documents.

• Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) funded projects can submit data to their regional GoMRI location. See https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/about for additional information including their data management plan under the "Design and Management" menu option.

• Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) research community: Guidance to OCB scientists who are uncertain where to submit or propose to submit their data is available from the OCB website.