EASYDAB (Earth System Data Branding): Enhancing the Findability and the Reuse of FAIR and Open Data

Abstract

Even though in Earth System Sciences (ESS) the importance of good research data management has been widely discussed, the easy discoverability of quality-checked data has not yet been addressed in detail. This is the aim of the Earth System Data Branding (EASYDAB). EASYDAB is a branding to highlight FAIR and open data from Earth System Sciences that are published with DataCite DOIs. The EASYDAB guideline defines principles on how to achieve high metadata quality of ESS datasets by demanding specific metadata information. The EASYDAB logo is protected and may only be used by repositories that agree to follow the EASYDAB terms. The logo indicates that published data have an open licence, open file formats and rich metadata information. Quality controls by the responsible repository ensure that these conditions are met. For the control, the repository can choose between different approved quality guidelines such as e.g. the ATMODAT Standard, ISO 19115 or the OGC Geopackage Encoding Standard. Ideally, a quality guideline provides detailed mandatory and recommended specifications for rich metadata in the data files, the DataCite DOI and the landing page. One example of such a quality guideline is the ATMODAT standard, which has been developed specifically for atmospheric model data (AtMoDat project). In addition to the metadata specifications, it also demands controlled vocabularies, structured landing pages and specific file formats (netCDF). The ATMODAT standard includes checklists for data producers and data curators so that compliance with the requirements can easily be obtained by both sides. To facilitate an automated compliance check of the netCDF files metadata, a Python tool has also been developed and published. The automated checking of the quality principles enables a simplified control of the data by the repository. Nevertheless, repositories can also use checklists for the curation of the data. The overall aim of the curation of EASYDAB datasets shall always be the enhancement of the reuse of reviewed, high-quality data. Therefore, EASYDAB shows scientists the way to open and FAIR data while it enables repositories to indicate their efforts in publishing data with high maturity.