Earth System Science Data
Earth System Science Data
Earth System Science Data

Earth System Science Data (ESSD) supports you in making your data FAIR and impactful.

The primary mission of an ESSD publication is to support the dissemination and reuse of well-documented and quality-assured datasets. Therefore, to submit a manuscript to ESSD the data described must be stored in a suitable research data repository. Where available, this should be a discipline-specific, community-recognised repository. In any case, an appropriate repository must meet the following criteria (exceptions require approval from the ESSD editorial team before submission):

  • Persistent identifiers: The repository must assign persistent identifiers to datasets. In most cases, this will be a registered Digital Object Identifier (DOI). DOIs ensure permanent access to and archival of the data, metadata, and the data landing page. Other types of persistent identifiers are not recommended and need to be clarified with the ESSD editorial team before submission.
  • Temporary links (review and discussion only): The review of presented data is an integral part of ESSD's public peer-review process. Consequently, data may change during review, which in many cases requires registering a new version of the data and archival of both versions. To avoid unnecessary duplication, ESSD strongly recommends selecting a repository providing temporary data-in-review links. For the time of review such links enable temporary access to preliminary data versions directly at the selected repository before registering a data DOI. Third party temporary links outside of a repository (e.g. private cloud storage) are not acceptable.
  • Open data: All data need to be openly available, free of charge, and with the least possible barriers. Some repositories may require registration and login to access data, in which case some form of anonymous access must be provided for the time of review (e.g. data-in-review links, see above).
  • Permissive Licenses: The license applied to the data must enable anyone to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the datasets free of charge as long as proper attribution is given. The repository must enable authors to select a license to fulfil these goals as appropriate. In most cases, this will be Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0) or Creative Commons Zero (CC0). ESSD does not accept the following licenses or any equivalent or remix thereof: CC BY SA, CC BY ND, ODbL. Non-commercial (e.g. CC BY NC) licenses are acceptable only under exceptional circumstances and need to be clarified before submission.
  • Rich metadata: The provision of rich, descriptive DOI metadata is increasingly relevant for data discovery and to ensure that the different research outputs (scholarly literature, data, software physical samples) are interconnected in unique and machine-readable way. This can be achieved by the integration of persistent identifiers (ORCID, ROR, IGSN, DOI) and domain-specific descriptive linked data vocabularies in the DOI metadata. While domain repositories mostly ensure that the collected metadata is fulfilling these criteria (due to their data curation), researchers using generalist repositories are required to fulfil these individually.
  • Internationality: Repository interfaces, metadata, and DOI landing pages must be available in English language. Multiple language versions are not discouraged; however, the persistent identifier needs to point directly to the English language landing page and version of the data.

How to find an appropriate repository?

Research data repositories and databases are the primary gateways to Earth system data. In particular, domain-specific repositories publish well-documented and reusable data. These repositories typically offer thorough data and metadata curation by staff that often includes domain experts. While this process is generally more time-consuming than publishing in a generalist repository, it significantly enhances the quality of both metadata and data. For this reason, ESSD strongly recommends choosing a domain-specific repository whenever possible.

ESSD does not endorse or recommend individual repositories but accepts any that meet the criteria outlined above. To identify a suitable repository, consult a research data manager at your institution. Additionally, the re3data registry and the FAIRsharing registry provide comprehensive overviews of available repositories.