Science Center Data Management Strategy

Preface

To achieve the USGS mission of providing scientific data that serves the nation, data management must go beyond the immediate needs of the scientific research project. USGS science centers must take additional steps to provide data to the public in useful forms and to preserve data and make it discoverable far into the future. These requirements are expressed in the USGS Science Data Lifecycle Model (see diagram in appendix section A and USGS OFR 2013-1265), the USGS Public Access Plan, and new chapters in the Survey Manual. USGS information will move into a more open and transparent world of scientific research as we address these new data management policies. The USGS is committed to meet the following requirements by October 1, 2016:

  • Research data must be actively managed throughout the USGS Scientific Data Lifecycle Model: Plan, Acquire, Process, Analyze, Preserve, and Publish/ Share.
  • An approved data management plan is required for every new research project.
  • Metadata records describing how the data were acquired, what steps were used to process the data, and what tools were used to analyze the data need to accompany all data.
  • The metadata must be submitted to the USGS Science Data Catalog.
  • Data must be approved for release, which requires review of both data and metadata. In many cases, approval of data for release is delegated to the Science Center Director.
  • The supporting digital data must be released, free of charge, in a machine-readable form at the same time or prior to the publication of research results that are completely or partially funded by the USGS. Limited exceptions will be made in cases of security, privacy, confidentiality, and other legal constraints.
  • Released data must be identified and linked to the corresponding publications through use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOI's).
  • Data acquired by USGS must be stored and managed in one of the USGS trusted public repositories or offline archives.

Each USGS science center will need to implement data management practices to meet these new policies that are consistent with local research activities. A science center data management strategy is a plan to meet these goals. It serves as a foundation for decisions about staffing, training, tools, procedures, and supervision; a demonstration of commitment to complying with policy; and a guide for researchers. This template for science center strategies uses the USGS Science Data Lifecycle as a structure.