APPENDIX 



GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION AND DISSEMINATION OF 



ENVIRONMENTAL DATA COLLECTED ON 



INTERNATIONAL DECADE OF OCEAN EXPLORATION PROGRAMS 



The potential value of the data which will be collected on programs 

 funded by the National Science Foundation through the Office for the 

 International Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE) warrants the imple- 

 mentation of a systematic procedure to assure that these data will be 

 adequately documented, catalogued, disseminated, and placed in the ar- 

 chives. Rapid and widespread national and international dissemination 

 of IDOE data by participants is required. 



Prior to the final commitment of support to any project, the Office 

 for the IDOE expects that representatives from the appropriate national 

 data repositories will contact the principal investigators of potential IDOE 

 programs expected to generate oceanographic or meteorologic data. Based 

 on the preliminary discussions, the parties will agree on the documenta- 

 tion required for each type of data to ensure meaningful interpretation 

 by others, and the methods and formats whereby the data and ancillary 

 information will be transmitted to the appropriate data repositories. The 

 data center representatives will submit to the Office for the IDOE, with 

 copies to the potential investigators, a written report of these discussions 

 and the agreements reached. The Office for the IDOE will provide the 

 necessary funding to the appropriate environmental data centers and will 

 ensure that center representatives contact the potential investigators and 

 maintain this liaison. 



Environmental data centers which the Office for the IDOE has desig- 

 nated to handle IDOE data are the National Oceanographic Data Center 

 (NODC), the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), and the Na- 

 tional Climatic Center (NCC) ; they are parts of the Environmental Data 

 Service (EDS), a component of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- 

 ministration. The Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center (SOSC), 

 a part of the Smithsonian Institution, has also been designated an IDOE 

 data center. NODC will be the lead center for IDOE data inventories, 

 data information, and for chemical, geological, physical, and biological 

 data; NGDC will be the lead center for geophysical data; NCC will be 

 the lead center for meteorlogical data; and SOSC will be the lead center 

 for collections of biological specimens. 



A first level inventory of data collected is to be submitted as soon as 

 possible (within thirty days) after completion of each cruise or data 

 collection phase. A National Marine Data Inventory (NAMDI) form or 

 equivalent, e.g., CICAR Data Inventory form for CICAR participants, 

 accompanied by an annotated sketch of the trackline or survey area, 

 should be completed and submitted as directed at this stage. 



All IDOE program data will be declared a part of the U.S. Declared 

 National Program and will be reported internationally. The completion 

 of NAMDI or equivalent forms and submissions to EDS will eliminate 

 the necessity of compiling Report of Observations/Samples Collected by 

 Oceanographic Programs (ROSCOP) forms or notifications to the Inter- 

 national Data Exchange System, a requirement for all IDOE programs. 



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