A New Approach to Research Data Archiving for WDS Sustainable Data Integration in China

The World Data System (WDS) requires that WDS data centers have significant data holdings and sustainable data sources integration and sharing mechanism. Research data is one of the important science data resources, but it is difficult to be archived and shared. To develop a long term data integration and sharing mechanism, a new approach to data archiving of research data derived from science research projects has been developed in China. In 2008, the host agency of the World Data Center for Renewable Resources and Environment, authorized by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, began to implement the first pilot experiment for research data archiving. The approach’s data archiving process includes four phases: data plan development, data archiving preparation, data submission, and data sharing and management. In order to make data archiving operate more smoothly, a data archiving environment was established. This includes a uniform core metadata standard, data archiving specifications, a smart metadata register tool, and a web-based data management and sharing platform. During the last 3 years, research data from 49 projects has been collected by the sharing center. The datasets are about 2.26 TB in total size and have attracted over 100 users.