Data Management Plans 101- Planning the archive (once selected)

Congratulations! You got funded! You are eager to start on your new project, acquire new data, provide maps, or enhanced products from a mission, for example. The last thing on your mind is submitting the products you promised to PDS. You are probably thinking it is best to wait until you have all the products in hand before even thinking about the archiving process, right?

Wrong! (You knew the question was a set-up.)

We at the PDS will help you get you started early and will be with you all along the way. That way, we can avoid a mad-dash at the end, or even worse, running out of funding and have to do the work for free.

How do I get started on an Archive Plan?

Let’s supposed that you have never even archived any data before, or you submitted years ago (yes, things have changed), or you have vastly different products from last time you archived in the PDS. We at the PDS Nodes are here to help.

So here’s how it usually goes down here at the Small Bodies Asteorid Subnode.

Once NASA Headquarters (HQ) has notified us which proposals were funded, the work begins. The Small Bodies Node node will contact you directly, with congratulations and a request for more in formation including your data management plan, what type of data products and formats will be archived, and a rough time line of your archiving process.

We will also include the following letter [links] (pdsregistryimages.psi.edu/archiving_milestones) in our initial email to give you a little bit more information what to expect. If you are submitting your data to our Node, we strongly urge you to use our online archiving tool [link needed] OLAF (Online Archiving Facility).

How Early Can I Actually Start This Process?

If you have some data early on, it pays to upload them then. This allows us to see where problems might arise, and they of course sometimes do, as nothing works perfectly the first time.

A lot of metadata will have to be provided with your data, such as references, documentation, observing/instrument details, etc. We do this to improve how useable and searchable the archive is. Not only do we want to archive your data, but we want other researchers to easily find data relevant to them. That’s where all the metadata come in.

It isn’t as overwhelming as it seems. Breaking it down into smaller tasks will make all the difference. And again, the earlier you start, the easier it will be!

If your data format is PDS4 compliant but not supported by OLAF¹, then it is even more important to contact your PDS Node early, so that we can get started on creating PDS4 label templates. How labels are created will be provided later, so stay tuned.

Procrastination Doesnt Pay in Archiving

To recap: the earlier you start the easier it will be. And if you have data that can be easily put into several formats (e.g. delimited tables, or comma separated tables), it pays off to talk to your PDS Node or have a quick look at OLAF to see which one would be much easier to use.

This article is just an overview. The PDS has an official page with all of the details and helpful information needed for data providers, Information for Data Providers. This is where you can get more information but it is still best to work closley with your PDS Node from the beginning, as the people at the Nodes are familiar with te process.

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