Maintaining Data Records: Practical Decisions Required For Data Set Prioritization, Preservation, and Access

The NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) has collected an unprecedented volume of satellite-based remote sensing data. The current suite of sensors is maturing and the data sets derived from these sensors are slowly being integrated into science research programs. As NASA moves on to new missions and other funding priorities, it is likely that the funding to maintain these data in a highly interactive data system will decrease. The challenge to the NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAAC) in general and to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) DAAC in particular is to prioritize holdings, delegating lower priority data sets to lower cost management systems and perhaps lower levels of service. In order to address these data prioritization requirements, the NSIDC DAAC is experimenting with data maturity and levels of service scaling systems, thus permitting discussion of data set importance to our users in a more quantitative and less subjective manner. The Maturity Index (MI) is divided into three categories: scientific maturity, preservation maturity, and societal impact. In both the MI and Level of Service (LOS) categorizations, attempts are made convert descriptive categories into ordinal scales, with a resultant score for each data set. If this system proves successful, it could offer data managers a mechanism to assess data set value and defend high value data sets to the science community and federal funding agencies.