EPIC Best Practices

Items can be created by:

(1) manually editing EPIC's submission form:  this option is ideal for items which have not been published yet (e.g. an article in press) or do not have a DOI (e.g. talks, posters, field reports).  In case you have entered an article which has not been published yet, this should be  "User Workarea" until the article has a DOI and thus ready for revision by editors (use the "Save for later" option instead of "Deposit"; read below).

(2) importing from resolvable DOIs :  this option is ideal for articles for which an official DOI is available as it automatically imports all the exsiting CrossRef bibliographic metadata.  In this case users will only have to additionally enter AWI-specific metadata (e.g. research platforms, grant ID, etc).  It supports bulk import.

(3) importing from BibTex:  this option is ideal for items which are already in BibTex formatted reference document.  It supports bulk import.

Items created in EPIC are automatically stored in the "User Workareas" when the option "Save for later" is selected.   In the context of Helmholtz revision process,  it is particular important that the following metadata fields for all articles, theses, books and chapters in books, are correclty entered:

(1) official DOI for articles:  the DOI allow us to automatically tag your item to a PANGAEA dataset, if applied.    The official DOIs are also used to find how often your item has been cited (as provided by Altmetrics/Dimensions) 

(2) authors:  all AWI authors must be assigned the AWI email, username and ORCID (if available).  Use the auto-completion functionality to avoid typos.  Only items for which the username is available will be found in AWI personal homepages.

(3) divisions/work packages:  the organizational units of all AWI authors must be entered accordingly.  Items which do not allign with Helmholtz research must be tagged with "Helmholt Inependent research" option.  

(4) platforms/campaigns:  the platforms and campaigns in which the data used in the article has been acquired should be selected.  This enables the assignment of EPIC items to expeditions/campaigns in the framework of the  DATA portal

Once the metadata is complete and the PDF has been uploaded,  you may click on the "Deposit" option.  This will automatically move  the item you created (from workflow status  "User Workarea" to "Under review" ).  Additonally, an email notification will be sent to editors immediately(some editors have chosen to get weekly notifications only).   Items will then be reviewed by editors for metadata correctness and placed in "Live archive" as soon as possible.   At this point, an individual persintent unique identifier will be created for each item (type handle in this case) pointing to the landing page in EPIC.

Users are only allowed to edit items in their own "User Workspace".   Once in "live" archive, items can only be edited by the respective divison/section editors (see internal list) or librarians (request to pub-bib at awi.de).

Items in "Live archive" have a handle and thus should not be deletetd.  However, in an exceptional case in which an item may no longer be shown, it can be hidden from the public by placing it under status "Retired".  Email to epic at awi.de or pub-bib at awi. de should be sent in case you need to retire an item.

Following the guidelines for Good Scientific Practices,  you are advised to archive all data related to your publications.   All datasets and data products archived in PANGAEA will be automatically listed in the EPIC landing pages of  individual articles in which an official DOI has been provided as "Supplement" in PANGAEA.   

EPIC can also be used to archive key resources related to an instrument described in https://sensor.awi.de.  

EPIC enables tagging to an EU grant number (FB7 and H2020).  Make sure you exactly follow the syntax rules as displayed in the help text. By tagging your items to the corresponding EU grant, you are susporting openAIRE to create statistics of various funding agencies and projects.

The grant number is automatically displayed in the individual landing page of articles.  See example.

EPIC supports the export of the metadata associated with an indicidual item as well the listing of items resulting in a given search criteria (e.g. all ISI articles from AWI Director A. Boetius).  Items can be exported in various formats.  The metadata in EPIC is also been used in the framework of the AWI DATA portal.  In this case EPIC's metadata is being harvested on a daily basis and displayed in the context of expedition/campaigns and in the facetted search.  Examples are: 

• Articles and field reports for PS101
• Articles from Neumayer III related to WP 1.1