The Earth Data Portal for Finding and Exploring Research Content

Digitization and the Internet in particular have created new ways to find, re-use, and process scientific research data. Many scientists and research centers want to make their data available to the public and other researchers, but often the data is still not easy to find because it is distributed across different infrastructures. Rights of use and citability are sometimes unclear, and access to the data may have to be requested manually from the persons in charge.

The Earth Data Portal aims to provide a single point of entry for discovery and re-use of scientific research data in compliance with the FAIR principles. The portal aggregates data of the earth and environment research area from various providers and improves its findability. We also encourage publishing with permanent identifiers so that data is citable according to good scientific practice. As part of the German Marine Research Alliance and the Helmholtz-funded DataHub project, leading German research centers are working on joint data management concepts, including the data portal.

The portal offers a modern web interface with a full-text search, facets and explorative visualization tools. Seamless integration into the Observation to Analysis and Archives Framework (O2A) developed by the Alfred Wegener Institute also enables automated data flows from data collection to publication in the PANGAEA data repository and visibility in the portal. Current metadata on research missions and platforms also finds its way into the portal.

Logged in users get access to a common workspace that enables data processing on a shared infrastructure. This includes access to a shared file system, a Linux shell and a JupyterHub. The common workspace is strongly integrated into the automated data flow and enables access to automatically ingested data.

Another important part of the project is a comprehensive framework for data visualization, which brings user-customizable map viewers into the portal. Pre-curated viewers currently enable the visualization and exploration of data products from maritime research. The login feature also empowers users to create their own viewers including OGC services-based data products from different sources.

In the development of the portal, we use state of the art web technologies to offer user-friendly and high-performance tools for scientists. Regular demonstrations, feedback loops and usability workshops ensure implementation with added value.