Step 1: Registering your instrument with NCAS

Who’s involved

Instrument scientist, NCAS Data Manager, CEDA Data Scientist

Introduction

Establishing a consistent set of information about instruments and identifying associated content (e.g. information, data etc) from them throughout the entire data pipeline requires coordination and capturing agreed details in a consistent manner. Through registering instrument details through a central process an identifier for the instrument that can assigned and it can be come possible to have consistent instrument management. As part of this process defining the target output data products that could be made from the instrument is key to ensure wider interoperability and following established data practices.

Workflow

For NCAS Instruments:

1. Login to GitHub (https://github.com) [Inst. Sci.]
2. Visit https://github.com/ncasuk/ncas-data-instrument-vocabs/ and click on “Issues” [Inst. Sci.]
3. Click the green “New Issue” button [Inst. Sci.]
4. Press the green “Get Started” button next to the “New Instrument” option [Inst. Sci.]
5. Fill in the form, providing some information about the instrument and the scientist [Inst. Sci.]
6. Press the green “Submit new issue” button at the bottom of the page [Inst. Sci.]
7. A discussion will then take place through this GitHub issue to finalise some further details [Inst. Sci., NCAS D.M., CEDA D.S.]
8. Once all details have been confirmed, the NCAS Data Manager or a CEDA Data Scientist will add these details to the relevant spreadsheet. [NCAS D.M., CEDA D.S.]
9. The spreadsheet will be downloaded using https://github.com/ncasuk/amf-check-writer and TSV and JSON files will be created. All these files will be updated on the GitHub repository through a pull request initiated by the NCAS Data Manager or a CEDA Data Scientist, linking to the relevant issues. [NCAS D.M., CEDA D.S.]
10. After the pull request is merged, a new release will be created on GitHub, which is automatically pulled through to Zenodo [Zenodo]

For Non-NCAS Instruments to be curated with CEDA:

1. Search for existing instrument identifiers (abbreviations) in the CEDA data catalogue instrument listing page.
2. If an existing instrument entry does not match or needs amending, contact the CEDA data management helpdesk: data.management@ceda.ac.uk

Making corrections to your entries

Sometimes there may be a need to update an existing instrument entry (e.g. correct an error or to add/amend details). The process is similar to registering an instrument for the first time.

1. Follow steps 1-3. Then under ‘issues’ select the green ‘get started’ button to the right of the the ‘Edit Instrument’ option.
2. Fill in the details on the form for the instrument and attribute you need to get altered and submit the form.
3. If the attribute is not present on the ‘attribute’ drop down list then:
4. Go to ‘issues’
5. Select ‘new issue’
6. Provide details of the NCAS instrument identifier and the changes needed, clearly stating which attribute needs to be amended.
7. Assign the new issue to Joshua Hampton
8. This will initiate a conversation between the instrument scientist and the NCAS Data Manager (possibly with the CEDA archive representative too) to make any changes as needed, including potential changes to the CEDA data catalogue entries as required.

Future Plan

A formal NCAS Instrument commissioning process is being examined of which registering the NCAS instrument will be a key element, establishing key instrument metadata, including assignment of identifiers to be used and selection of data products.

To aid this, NCAS is looking to consolidate instrument details presently held in 4 different locations, each serving different needs, into a central NCAS Instrument Database. This will improve the management of the instrument details over time and support external users finding relevant instrumentation and associated data for their needs.

Additional, there is work internationally to support the assignment of permanent identifiers for instruments, so called PIDINSTs. Much like ORCID IDs that can allow individual researchers to be uniquely identified, regardless of changes such as name and organisation, PIDINSTs provide a way to have an permanently resolvable identifier that can be used to reference the instrument reliably over time. This PIDINST links through to a reliable page detailing the instrument, avoiding the necessity of including lots of instrument details within files and can allow changes to be tracked over time too as well as usage to be determined.

Further Details

A full list of instruments that have been registered through this tool as well as previous instruments can be found on the instrument listing page of the CEDA data catalogue. It should noted that the Instrument details held on the CEDA catalogue retain an historic perspective of the instruments and so will, where requires, retain information on previous identifiers/names/owners of instrumentation. Part of this reason is to aid wider discoverability and connection between older and newer data, or fresher versions of re-processed data for a given instrument.