Shallow-Water 2006 (SW06)

Data Sharing Policy - July 2006

The Shallow-Water 2006 Experiment brings together multiple investigators and multiple coordinated scientific projects.  Data for SW06 will be collected in and around the East Coast Strataform area of the Mid-Atlantic Bight during the late summer of 2006.  The three largest groups of participating scientists are from the Littoral Environmental Acoustics Research (LEAR) project, the Non-Linear Internal Waves Initiative (NLIWI) project, and the Autonomous Wide Aperture Cluster for Surveillance (AWACS) project.  All data are collected for basic research projects and is unclassified.

Objectives

The full success of the SW06 multi- investigator, multi-institution, multi-sponsor experiment depends on the successful coordination of data sharing among the collaborating scientists.  Many of the SW06 experimental objectives require the quantitative analysis of multiple interdisciplinary data sets and therefore data must be readily exchanged between researchers. 

Publication Using Data

Data collected during the upcoming SW06 joint research experiment in the Shallow-Water 2006 (East Coast Strataform) area fall loosely into two categories: (a) routine or institutionalized data, and (b) program or investigator-specific data. 

Routine Data  

Examples of (a) routine data include (but are not limited to) sea level or weather buoy data and standard climatological data which are routinely collected and archived by others, raw satellite data which is routinely available on the World Wide Web, and ship's underway SAIL and hull-mounted ADCP data.  Publication of these data generally does not require co-authorship, although citation and/or acknowledgement is expected of the using investigator.

Program/ Investigator Specific Data 

Examples of (b) program/ investigator data include (but are not limited to) data from oceanographic and acoustic moorings, towed and lowered CTD data, data from surface drifters and subsurface floats, data from unique underway sampling systems or from sensors mounted on autonomous vehicles, and satellite data which has been sufficiently post-processed and value-added that the investigator has a stake in its continued usage. 

There are two possible actions for publication of program/ investigator data, both of which require discussion with and permission from the data collector: 

1. Expectation of co-authorship:  This is the usual condition.  Scientists making use of the data should anticipate that the data collectors would be active participators and require co-authorship of published results. 
2. Provide citation to and acknowledgement of the data:  In cases where the data collector acknowledges the importance of the application but expects to make no time investment or intellectual contribution to the published work, the data collector may agree to provide the data to another scientist providing data reports are properly cited and the contribution is recognized in the text and acknowledgements. 

In the case of data collected by a team of investigators, all the investigators should be consulted before the data are released to any outside party by any single investigator.  Investigators using other investigator's data must discuss/ send any manuscript to them prior to submission anywhere.  Agreements about publication, authorship, or citation should be documented at a minimum by email between the investigators. 

Model Outputs

Output from numerical models that are not routinely and operationally run should be considered as the equivalent of type (b) program/ investigator data.  Investigators endeavoring to utilize such output should expect co-authorship by the modeler unless declined by the modeling team leader. 

Roles and Responsibilities

Principal Investigators who are responsible for the collection of data during SW06 are considered participating SW06 scientists and may request data from and provide data to other participating scientists.

Participating scientists have primary responsibility for quality-controlling their own data and making it available to the rest of the SW06 participating scientists.  Data must be made available to the participating scientific community on a timely basis.  As soon as data might be useful to other researchers, the data should be released, along with documentation that can be used by the other researchers to judge data quality and potential usefulness. 

Participating scientists who wish to use others' data sets are responsible for notifying those principal investigators of their intent and inviting collaboration and/ or co-authorship of published results. 

For the first two years after SW06 data collection, only principal investigators participating in the SW06 data collection effort will be authorized to share SW06 data.  After that time, SW06 participating investigators may allow non-participant use of their data sets.

There will be no third party data dissemination.

All potential users who access the data will be reminded of the SW06 commitment to the principle that data is the intellectual property of the collecting scientists.

Program sponsors of participating scientists may arbitrate and reach agreement on data sharing questions when they arise.

DRAFT of July 9, 2006