Workflow for contributions to ISIMIP

If you would like to contribute to ISIMIP with simulation data you have created yourself, please first follow the instructions under Join ISIMIP.

Note: We are in the process of migrating our publicly available data from our ESGF portal to the new ISIMIP repository. When we mention the ISIMIP repository in these Terms of Use, we are also referring to our ESGF portal. Please note that the "ISIMIP repository" is not the same as the "ISIMIP workspace at DKRZ", hereinafter referred to as DKRZ.

All those who contribute data should be familiar with the following data management flow:

1. An initial quality check is performed on all data uploaded to the ISIMIP workspace at DKRZ.
   
   The quality check is to ensure that all files conform to the ISIMIP file format specifications. You will be notified by email of any issues identified during format testing that may require your data to be reprocessed, detailing the issues and the steps required to resolve them. Once all issues are resolved and the quality check is complete, you will be contacted again. Your simulation data will then be immediately made available to all ISIMIP participants and associated scientists via their DKRZ's accounts.
   
   We recommend that you complete the documentation of your model outputs when you upload your simulations to our DKRZ repository as early as possible in the ISIMIP Modellers Dashboard. This will help other modelers understand the premises of your simulations and identify potential caveats.
   
   
2. The data is stored at DKRZ during an initial embargo period.
   
   The embargo period is the time between the submission of your data to DKRZ and the publication in the ISIMIP repository, where they are accessible to external users. The embargo period lasts up to one year after the submission of the data to DKRZ for a given simulation round. Therefore, the start (and end) of the embargo period may not coincide for all sectors and models. However, modelers have the option to shorten the embargo period for their simulation data if they wish to make that data publicly available more quickly.
   
   Data at DKRZ are accessible only to ISIMIP participants. Authors of publications using data from DKRZ during the embargo period are required to offer co-authorship to at least one representative of the relevant modeling teams, the ISIMIP sector coordinators, and the ISIMIP cross-sector science team for the sectors relevant to the publication. Please see the Terms of use for ISIMIP data during embargo period.
   
   After successful quality check and storage of your files at DKRZ, you will have the opportunity to choose the duration of the embargo period for your simulation data, after which your data will be made publicly available in the ISIMIP repository. You will receive a data publication confirmation email form asking you to review your model documentation, license your model data, and choose the date you want your data to be published in the ISIMIP repository: immediately, one year after data submission, or at a specified date no later than one year after data submission. The model documentation, license, and embargo period should be agreed upon by everyone in your modeling group.
   
   Please note that as many fields of the model documentation as possible must be filled in. Models with incomplete documentation will no longer be available to ISIMIP participants in our DKRZ repository from this point on - access rights to simulation files will be changed. Therefore, models with incomplete documentation will also not be made available to external users in our ISIMIP repository. More information on documentation can be found on the Modellers' Dashboard.
   
   Replacement of data during the embargo period will be communicated to modelers via the "isimip-modellers" mailing list. Please see our Notes on replacing data.
   
   
3. After the embargo period, the simulation data will be made publicly available in the ISIMIP repository.
   
   Data transferred to the ISIMIP repository are immediately publicly available according to the restrictions of the license assigned to them (see Licenses for publicly available ISIMIP data). Publicly available data are documented under the appropriate sector- and simulation-round-specific DOI (see Notes on DOIs).
   
   Authors of papers using data from the ISIMIP repository are no longer subject to the restrictions of co-authorship or approval by the modeling groups.
   Please see the Terms of use for publicly available ISIMIP data (after embargo period).
   
   Although it is central to the goals of ISIMIP that simulation data be made available for use beyond the immediate ISIMIP modeling community, in some exceptional cases the data may be held only at DKRZ. In this case, the availability of the data will be noted on the ISIMIP website so that interested parties can request access. If your modeling group does not agree to publication on the ISIMIP repository, you should report this to info@isimip.org and isimip-data@pik-potsdam.de. Please note that in this case, long-term storage of your data at DKRZ cannot be guaranteed.
   
   Changes to publicly available data may result in the need to write a data caveat, retrieve or replace data from the ISIMIP repository, and reissue a DOI. In these cases, data caveats are communicated via the 'isimip-data_updates' mailing list. Please refer to our notes on replacing data.