How do I approach data publication?
Raw data / Primary data publication workflow
- Raw data publishing will be a semi-automatic process and the responsible PIs should provide necessary metadata and initiate the data archivation from MCS to PANGAEA. The raw data publication can be initiated once the sensor description and the sensor raw data description had been completed by the PIs.
- Primary data publication (calibrated data, data ready made for a paper publication) needs to be always initiated by the authors by opening a data submission ticket in PANGAEA or other designated repository, if exceptions apply.
- If the raw data wasn’t published with PANGAEA at the time of primary data publication yet, and is needed, contact the PANGAEA team for initiating the raw data publication.
- During data publication instruct the editors in your data repository to create links to other versions of data (e.g., raw data), especially when they were or are being published in another repository.
- All published data must include a funding acknowledgment of MOSAiC in the following form: "Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of the Arctic Climate (MOSAiC)" with the tag "MOSAiC20192020”. Additionally, the Project ID given for specific expedition must be mentioned. For the Polarstern expedition this is "AWI_PS122_00". Additional attributions like specific award/grant numbers might be added.

MOSAiC device operation ID / Event
- The MOSAiC Device operation ID(s) registered by D-ship action log called Events in PANGAEA (further only Events) are important identifiers, that link the data with metadata stored in SENSOR. Therefore, each data set submitted to PANGAEA needs to be equipped with the by relevant Events.
- The Events list is available after the end of each leg from PANGAEA page https://www.pangaea.de/expeditions/byproject/MOSAiC. It can be found for viewing or download under "Event list: " links.
- Errors cannot be corrected in D-ship log, but can be corrected in PANGAEA Event list & SENSOR records
- Also information, that wasn't available at the time of D-ship log finalizing at the end of each leg, e.g. end position and Date/time of a buoy record, can be added using this procedure.
- Follow instructions for submitting an event correction sheet to PANGAEA either as a separate submission or in connection to related data.
Primary data submission to PANGAEA
Publication of primary data sets in PANGAEA or other recommended repositories is the responsibility of each scientist (MOSAiC data policy).
The data can be submitted via https://www.pangaea.de/submit/. Sign in with your user name. If you are not a PANGAEA user yet you need to register with your name and E-Mail address, or ideally your ORCID ID.
This login can later also be used to access your password protected dataset during the review of your data publication. After signing up, you will receive a link via email to activate your account and sign in.
Once logged in, click on “Submit data” and a data submission form will open.
Metadata must be submitted together with the data. Minimal requirements are:
- dataset Author(s), PI (each parameter can have a separate PI)
- dataset title: should reflect what has been measured, observed or calculated, when, where and how
- MOSAiC device operation ID(s) / Event labels associated with individual data / data files
- related institute(s) or publication(s)
- description of your data (dataset abstract)
Finally you need to attach your dataset files. If your data files are larger than 100 MB we can provide an upload link for large files up to 10 GB per file. Please indicate this in the Description-field.
Any documentation (e.g., MOSAiC Standard operating procedures, MSOPs) helping to understand the data can and should be linked to the dataset(s). This can be done in the form of text or pdf-file, or hdl (link to Epic). If no persistent link to the documents can be provided, PANGAEA can archive the documents permanently alongside the data.
The granularity of the data is up to the author(s) of the dataset. Lower-granularity datasets can be combined in a (time-)series collection dataset as in https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.873032.
During submission (https://www.pangaea.de/submit/), the connection with MOSAiC has to be clearly stated in the Label Field of the Data Submission ("MOSAiC"). The MOSAiC Project ID (for the Polarstern expedition this is "AWI_PS122_00") is internally associated as a grant number of the MOSAiC project and does not have to be inserted in the submission form additionally.
Once all necessary information is entered and data files uploaded, the submission is finalized by pressing the “Create” button. Do not worry if you are uncertain about some fields or content, you will still be able to make final adjustments during the following steps and with support of your data curator. First the submission passes a brief editorial review to make sure the data submission is complete. If questions remain, we will get back to you. Then the submission will be assigned to a data curator who will lead you through the further process.
After we’ve imported your data to PANGAEA, you’ll be asked to proofread your dataset, which is then “in review”. We lead you through this iterative process with our ticket system until the data submission is complete and approved by you. Once the dataset is approved, the digital object identifier, DOI, is registered and with that the dataset is officially published and citable.
If the related manuscript has not been published yet, a moratorium on access and publication can be put in place. At the same time, PANGAEA can provide a temporary key to enable access to your datasets for example for anonymous reviewers. In general, moratorium on MOSAiC data is possible until 2023-01-01.
If a published dataset needs to be updated, PANGAEA will upload a new version of this dataset, with new documentation and complete metadata (clearly providing information on the changes between the versions). Both versions can be linked but will have their own DOIs.
Datasets in PANGAEA may be archived as stand-alone publications of data (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.753658) or as supplements to an article (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.846130).
Data submission to PANGAEA
Within the data table, parameters (table header) should be submitted with full names and units. Data submitted in the form of videos, photos, geoTIFF, shape files, netCDF, sgy, etc. will be archived as is (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.865445).
More information on data submission can be found in https://wiki.pangaea.de/wiki/Data_submission.
Preparing tabular data submission to PANGAEA
Data submitted as TAB-delimited text data files or in excel-format
Georeference is mandatory (latitude/longitude in decimal degree): for all samples, observations and measurements made somewhere on Earth
Third dimension: water depth, altitude, depth in ice, …
Date/Time: ISO-format (e.g. 2020-04-07T13:34:11)
For each observation provide Event (Device operation ID) in the first column
Parameters are always accompanied by a unit
Abbreviations should be explained
A separate metadata table can be added, with short name / long name / PI / method / comment for each parameter
Keep in mind when submitting in excel-format:
- Remove formulas
- Use the correct number of decimals you want to use (we cannot add any after import) – one data series has fixed number of decimals
- Use only one decimal separator (don’t mix “.” and “,”)
- Don't use colors, fonts, comments
- No value? Keep cell empty. No "NaN", "NA", "-", " ", ...
- Don't combine cells
- One value – one cell (no ranges “-”, or errors / uncertainties “±”: these need to be entered in separate columns
- One table – one sheet (file) (no multiple tables with a different structure in a single sheet)
- Other excel pains: date formats, character encoding (UTF-8), hidden columns, cell comments ... - try to spare us
Binary files with specific formats (e.g. shape files, netCDF, segy, images, videos, ...) will be archived as links to files. For >20 files or >100 MB: ask us upload link in the ticket.