SHEBA Data Protocol

Developed and adopted by the SST at the SHEBA Workshop, 25-28 January 1999

This detailed protocol is meant as a guide for all SHEBA investigators with regard to the processing, quality control, dissemination and sharing of data with other SHEBA participants and cooperating projects, specifically ARM and FIRE, as well as with the ARCSS investigators and the general scientific community. The objective of the protocol is to facilitate the timely submission and exchange of high quality data in an open fashion to all interested investigators, and to assure the long-term archival of the SHEBA data sets.

1.All SHEBA Science Team (SST) members will submit their data within one year of the end of the field program [11 October, 1999] to JOSS or other appropriate archive center to facilitate longer term archival and distribution.

2.Each investigator's data are considered proprietary until the data are published in the refereed literature, or are published and released via the SHEBA archives to the science community. The SHEBA archives will be released to the SHEBA and ARCSS communities in October, 1999. This release will be extended to the public in October, 2000.

3.Individual SST members may release their proprietary data to whomever they wish. They may not release data of other SST members without consent. The direct exchange of data among investigators is encouraged. All SHEBA datasets will be considered in the SHEBA/ARCSS domain after October 11, 1999. This will enhance free and open access to the data. This DOES NOT remove responsibility from the sponsoring investigator of a given study to solicit the help of the data provider early in the investigation and offer co-authorship when significant intellectual contributions are made to the resulting publication.

4.Datasets submitted to the archive centers must follow documentation guidelines set forth by SHEBA in the SHEBA Data Management Plan and by ARCSS in the ARCSS Data Protocol so that users understand the characteristics and attributes of the data and the chosen format. This includes information concerning the quality of the data and may require that suitable caveats regarding the data be included in any publication using that data.

5.An investigator whose proprietary data are to be used in an investigation has the right to be included among the authors of any resulting publication but must work with the authors to determine such need. During the period prior to 11 October, 1999 an investigator may refuse co-authorship but not the use of his data by the SHEBA Science Team.

6.SST members publishing SHEBA results must always provide appropriate acknowledgement and citation of those who collected and provided the data, regardless of contribution to the publication.

7.SST members are strongly encouraged to submit any datasets resulting from collaborative SHEBA investigations to the SHEBA archive at JOSS. This includes collaborative work outside the SST.

8.SHEBA will use a distributed archive strategy. Investigators may keep their own data collected as part of SHEBA so long as they establish appropriate links to this data through the SHEBA archive

at JOSS. An appropriate link provides access through a national data center, or other similar long-term archive center.

9.The SST will likely provide a framework for collaborative investigations especially as they concern the development and use of the LES, IRF, SCM and aggregate integrated datasets. Data providers will be acknowledged and cited, and will be offered co-authorship if significant intellectual contributions are made to the publication. The resultant datasets will be accessible via the SHEBA archive at JOSS with the same release schedule as other SHEBA data.

10.The SST are members of the FIRE and ARM Science Teams as established in separate Memoranda of Participation. As such, they have access to the project datasets and must follow the respective data protocols of those projects. There will be additional informal data exchange

with ancillary experiments that participated in the SHEBA Field Experiment. FIRE and ARM investigators who are members of the SST by virtue of these memoranda are subject to this data protocol.