Data Exchange Principles

• Data providers need to submit standard product catalogs to the CEOS IDN.

• Data requirements need to be identified by ad hoc committees of the relevant international research programs.

• Global change researchers need to be chosen through peer review or a similar process within the context of the research priorities of relevant programs.

• Written agreements (including protection of data rights and requirements for publication) need to be signed by selected researchers and their sponsoring institutions.

• Data must be shared among selected users.

Resolution on Satellite Data Exchange Principles in Support of Global Change Research

RECOGNIZING that the members of CEOS are actively involved in supporting global change/climate and environmental research and monitoring efforts of the international scientific community, as well as pursuing other uses of Earth observations data such as local/regional research, operational environmental monitoring, and commercial;

RECOGNIZING the investments made by governments and international agencies in support of global change/climate research and environmental research and monitoring and the value of nonsatellite data to these programs;

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT that the acquisition, processing, and supply of data, especially space data, involve major investments, and that data have value;

RECOGNIZING that these investments and values should be respected by data suppliers and users;

RECOGNIZING the existence of various policy aims such as maximizing the use of data from all sources and shifting the funding responsibility for certain remote-sensing systems to users or other sources;

AWARE that success in global change/climate and environmental research and monitoring requires a continuing commitment to the establishment, maintenance, validation, description, accessibility, and distribution of high-quality long-term data sets, many of which rely on spaceborne observations;

ANTICIPATING the potential benefits of compatible policies and mechanisms for data exchange in obtaining access to global data;

REAFFIRMING the commitment of CEOS Members to the general principle of nondiscriminatory access to data;

RECOGNIZING the importance of appropriate legal regimes for the exchange of remotely sensed data;

RECOGNIZING the common goal of providing data to global change researchers from all missions on a consistent basis reflecting primarily the cost of filling the user request;

RECOGNIZING also that the constraints of the mission operations and of available resources may require different mechanisms for data exchange/sharing to be found for different programs;

CEOS members endorse the following principles relating to satellite data exchange in support of global change/climate and environmental research and monitoring and agree to work toward implementing them to the fullest extent possible. Principles for data exchange in support of other data uses beyond global change/climate and environmental research and monitoring will be developed for CEOS endorsement as a next step.

1. Preservation of all data needed for long-term global change/climate and environmental research and monitoring is required.

2. Data archives should include easily accessible information about the data holdings, including quality assessments, supporting ancillary information, and guidance and aids for locating and obtaining the data.

3. International standards—including those generated by the CEOS Working Group on Data—should be used to the greatest extent possible for recording/storage media and for processing and communication of data sets.

4. Maximizing the use of satellite data is a fundamental objective. An exchange/sharing mechanism among CEOS Members is an essential first step to maximize use.

5. Nondiscriminatory access to satellite data by non-CEOS Members for global change/climate and environmental research and monitoring is essential. This should be achieved within the framework of the exchange and sharing mechanisms set up by CEOS Members.

6. Programs should have no exclusive period of data use. Where the need to provide validated data is recognized, any initial period of exclusive data use should be limited and explicitly defined. The goal should be release of data in some preliminary form within three months after the start of routine data acquisition.

7. Criteria and priorities for data acquisition, archiving, and purging should be harmonized.

View Satellite Data Exchange Principles in Support of Operational Environmental Use for the Public.

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Curator: CEOS Secretariat

(Last update: October 1, 2001)