IMPLEMENTING THE GROUP ON EARTH OBSERVATIONS DATA MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES: OBSERVATIONS OF A SCIENTIFIC DATA CENTER

Abstract. The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Data Management Principles (DMP) provide direction for managing geospatial data and related information products and services. Offering opportunities for enabling discovery, accessibility, usability, preservation, and curation, the GEO DMP challenge repositories, such as scientific archives and data centers, to improve practices that foster the use of Earth science data today and in the future. In addition, the Data Management Principles Implementation Guidelines (IG) offer many practical suggestions for implementing the DMP with examples that can inform the consideration of options for improving geospatial data management practices. Implementing such improvements offers value to the users of geospatial data by enabling data providers to support the use of the data products and services that they disseminate. Adopting these improvements also can assist repositories in their efforts to meet the requirements for attaining data repository certification, which offers value for repositories and their stakeholders. This article shows how repositories can improve data management practices for geospatial data by adopting the GEO DMP, with examples drawn from a scientific data center. Current and future opportunities for improving data management practices to attain data repository certification also are described along with practical approaches that repositories can adopt in the short term.