Data Management in MAST Projects
4th revision (1997) of Code on Data Management in MAST Projects

INTRODUCTION

The MAST Programme has a common approach to data management in all MAST projects because

• it is of benefit for scientists working in MAST projects and for the community of marine researchers in general,
• it makes effective use of resources allocated by the European Union and its Member States and
• it ensures that properly documented and quality controlled data sets are available for public use after the end of each project.⁽¹⁾

For enquiries, please contact the MAST office
Tel. +32-2-2956787 or
M. Bohle-Carbonell (Tel. +32-2-2958111), E-mail: Martin.Bohle-Carbonell@dg12.cec.be

⁽¹⁾ The technical means mentioned below, for example for reporting, are part of the daily practice of MAST. The Cruise Summary Reports (or ROSCOP forms) are the usual means for reporting on field experiments to National Oceanographic Data Centers (NODC) and International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) - for detailed information see ICES WWW-server. The European Directory on Marine Environmental Data (EDMED), a former supporting initiative of MAST, is built by data centres in the EU Member States on information provided on EDMED-forms - for detailed information see WWW-server of the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC).

Code on Data Management in MAST Projects

Project data management is an end-to-end process which starts with the design of the measurement programme or gathering of existing data sets and which ends with the public access to the comprehensive, quality controlled and fully documented data set of the project. Thus project data management is a key-element in the overall conduct of the project.

Project data management is a value adding activity which helps to maximize the return on investment made into a RTD-project by being the foundation for multiple purpose use of project data sets. Thus project data management is essential for dissemination and exploitation of project results.

Project data management is a specialized scientific activity done in a framework of existing national and international policies, of established national and international infrastructures such as national data centres and international programmes and of a mature state of the art. Thus project data management requires appropriate skills and resources.

Guiding principles of project data management

All activities related to project data management shall be brought together in a data management plan which is a mandatory part of the task description and the financial planning of any MAST project.

A data management plan shall describe work and responsibilities concerning

• design of measuring activities,
• reporting on collection and gathring of data,
• documentation, quality contol and building of comprehensive data sets,
• public banking or electronic publishing of data.

The MAST Programme imposes technical requirements common to all MAST projects only for reporting on collection and gathering of data. Any other technical issue shall be handled according to the specific requirements of the given project but shall build on best international practice and shall be spelled out in the data management plan.

Any data management plan shall implement the best available international practice in the specific field and shall integrate the project data management into the existing infrastructures such as public data centres or data management schemes of international programmes.

In handling data management matters the leading scientists of any project take care of the interests of the data originators and data users.

Regarding property rights spelled out with EU-RTD contracts, data gathered by projects are part of the foreground information generated by the project which has to be accessible for at least 10 years after termination of the contract. It is understood that MAST projects will serve these obligations if they make data publicly accessible with project termination. Access can be ensured by entrusting data to public data banks or by publishing data on electronic media which can be archived. It is recommended that any moratorium period for public access is shorter than 6 months counted form the date of project termination.

Mandatory reporting duties on data collection in MAST projects

In order to give the MAST Programme, MAST projects and all interested institutions, such as data centres, intergovernmental organizations, research undertakings or commercial undertakings the possibility to monitor data gathering activities of MAST projects minimum conditions for reporting are set. The reporting to MAST knows two levels:

• information which has to be made public
• information which is kept internal to the MAST programme, if the project participants wish to do so.

1. The original Cruise Summary Reports are sent to either a National Oceanographic Data Centre or to ICES, who is managing the global referral data base on Cruise Summary Reports.
2. The final project report will describe where and how the project data are available and includes EDMED forms describing the final data sets produced by the project.

1. A copy of the Cruise Summary Report (CSR) should be sent to the project coordinator immediately after the end of each field experiment.
2. A copy of the experiment report (cruise report) including station lists, etc., should be sent to the project coordinator shortly after the end of the field experiment.
3. Inventories of continuous observations should be copied regularly to the project coordinator.
4. The project coordinator adds the Cruise Summary Reports and inventories to the regular management reports.

In order to provide help to project scientists MAST has prepared: Contents:

	a "Guideline for Project Data Management"
	a "Guideline for Better Practice in Data Documentation" and
	online information available on the WWW

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