VOCALS Conditions of Use

The use of data produced in the context of the VOCALS project is ruled by the clauses of the FAAM Data Protocol stated below. In addition, the following clauses apply.

Access to core_processed data will be restricted to VOCALS participants for 12 months after the flight and will then be publicly available subject to agreement with the FAAM data protocol (see below).
Access to non-core data will be restricted until 1 year after the end of the VOCALS-UK project (ie until June 2012). For the first year after the flight access to this data will be limited to VOCALS participants only and thereafter (until June 2012) applications for access from non-participants will be considered at the PIs' discretion.
Users of VOCALS data are required to offer of co-authorship to the data originator in case of publication based on the data, or due acknowledgement in such publications. This condition will continue to apply after the data have been released to the public domain
Contact details of successful applicants will be communicated to the VOCALS principal investigators, who wish to monitor data usage.

FAAM Data Protocol

The aims of the Data Protocol are

to encourage rapid dissemination of scientific results from the FAAM;
to protect the rights of the individual scientists using the FAAM;
to have all the involved researchers treated equitably;
to ensure the quality of the data in the FAAM data archive.

These aims conflict at times, and it is hoped that the provisions of the protocol resolve these conflicts fairly. It is recognised that this cannot always be achieved to everyone's complete satisfaction; there are bound to be cases where individual interests clash with those of FAAM. Therefore, to try to meet these aims, all scientists involved in the use of the FAAM, in accordance with and on behalf of their co-investigators, must agree to abide by the conditions stated below.
In what follows, it will be referred to "core" versus "non-core" data.
Core data are data generated by core instruments as defined in the FAAM Instruments document (http://www.faam.ac.uk/public/instrumentation.html), which will be updated as new pieces of apparatus are assimilated to core instruments. Core instruments are operated by staff appointed by the FAAM.
Flight logs will be considered as core metadata.
Non-core data will be all other data, i.e. data generated by non-core instruments onboard the aircraft, which will be operated by the scientists conducting the experiments and sponsored by the various project funding bodies.

In the clauses below, "FAAM scientists" will denote all the scientists running experiments using the FAAM.

The designated FAAM data centre is the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC).
All validated processed data (i.e. data sets in their final form) together with the associated metadata should be submitted to the BADC.
The longevity of raw data must be ensured in a secure archive, possibly but not necessarily the BADC. Details pertaining to this raw data (i.e. metadata), whether or not archived at BADC, must be sent to the BADC, as well as information on how to access the data.
All core data must be submitted to the BADC as soon as possible, together with scanned flight logs (no hardcopies).
By default, once archived at the BADC, core data will be made freely available to all users within and outside FAAM. However, on request from the principal investigator of a project, access to the core data generated by that project may be made restricted to the project participants for a maximum of 12 months after the last flight.
FAAM non-core data produced under the auspices of a NERC directed research programme will be subject to the data protocol of that programme. In the event of conflict the directed research programme protocol will take precedence.
FAAM non-core data produced in contexts other than a NERC directed research programme will be subject to a data protocol to be set up in agreement with the project investigators. When the data production, distribution and use are already regulated by an existing programme policy, that policy will apply.
Submission of non-core validated processed data must take place no later than two years after the campaign final date.
Data submitted to the BADC must be in the data format agreed between FAAM and the BADC (namely, NetCDF and NASA Ames). All agreed metadata describing data (and possibly accompanying model results) must be supplied to BADC. Formats and metadata are documented at BADC.
Data submission to the BADC should be made via Web uploading for files not exceeding 1 GB. Larger data files should be submitted on DVDs.
Results of model studies feeding or accompanying FAAM campaign data analysis can be made available via the BADC.
Data users are requested to contact the responsible scientist prior to any use of the data. FAAM scientists may request acknowledgement (or joint authorship) in any publications based, using or quoting their data.
It is each principal investigator's responsibility to ensure that the data used in publications are the best available at that time.
In the event of a dispute over this protocol the final decision rests with the FAAM Board.