GAIA Rules Of The Road

GAIA is a Virtual Observatory (VO) for browsing and dissemination of auroral precipitation observations as summary data and full resolution data. These Rules of Road are applied for distributing the summary data. For full resolution data, see the RulesOfTheRoadHighResolution .

Terminology

GAIA is a collective term that refers not only to the virtual observatory but can also include the GAIA members who are the groups participating in the effort.

GAIA Node Software refers to the GAIA-specific software provided by the GAIA Working Group.

Summary data refers to GAIA-specific keograms and thumbnails. For details, see SummaryPlotRequirements.

Metadata refers to additional information required for browsing the data effectively. For details, see ProjectInformationRequirements.

The GAIA database is used for storing information about summary data and metadata.

A server used in the GAIA VO is called a node. NodeOperatorList shows the currently active nodes and their operators. A node manages a GAIA database and contains summary data.

A Master node (primary node?) is the node from which all Slave nodes update their GAIA database.

The web interface is the graphical front-end of GAIA served by one of the nodes. Multiple nodes may participate in providing the summary data.

GAIA communicates through the SteeringCommittee and working group with _data providers who all agree to have their summary data and metadata publicly available via the public GAIA API . The data providers are responsible for generating the required data in the GAIA compatible format and providing the meta data to the GAIA community.

Type 1 data providers allow copying of their summary and meta data to other GAIA nodes.

Type 2 data providers allow copying of meta data to other GAIA nodes.

User refers to anybody using GAIA web interface or connecting directly to the GAIA via the API .

Communication between GAIA and users

GAIA serves primarily as a browsing tool for viewing summary images on the computer screen. The users have no permission to use the GAIA summary plots for publishing in scientific venues. However, the users are encouraged to contact the instrument(s) PI(s) for full resolution data as well as for verifying the data validity.

Do we want to ask the data providers to include a citation to GAIA whenever somebody asks for full resolution data for publications? -- MikkoSyrjaesuo - 23 Aug 2007

GAIA summary plots can, however, be used in scientific conference presentations on the condition that the user complies with the CitationRulesForConferences . The procedure for obtaining these plots is described in ConferencePlots .

Kirsti suggests a simple registration for these plots (user's name and the conference details). I am not so convinced about that &emdash; lazy users would just do a screen grab of their browser window. I do like the "printable view" or "downloable presentation file" idea, though, preferably offered as both pdf and png files (or just png?) with an embedded GAIA logo. Something like EISCAT or SuperDarn plots. On the other hand, if the GUI is clean enough to embed a logo in the background, then we might not need a separate "printable view" although the "save as an image to file" function would stil be very handy -- MikkoSyrjaesuo - 23 Aug 2007

Comment: Those who allow copying should get information about the user statistics from the nodes who have copied the data -- KirstiKauristie - 30 Jul 2007

Only those who allow the copying of summary data? -- MikkoSyrjaesuo - 23 Aug 2007

Communication between the node operators and data providers

Data providers will provide updated metadata to the primary GAIA node, from which the slave nodes are updated (automatically).

I am not so sure whether the data providers would need to report possible changes in their metadata as Kirsti suggested. Instead, they should simply provide an updated set of metadata when necessary. -- MikkoSyrjaesuo - 23 Aug 2007

Kirsti's thought about checking the validity of the data is a good one. Maybe we should have a tool script that goes through the data directory tree and reports file name syntax errors? -- MikkoSyrjaesuo - 23 Aug 2007

The data providers should take (reasonable?) care about the correctness of their summary data.

I believe that if we do a good enough job with the orientation calibration with IRIS, MIRACLE, NORSTAR and THEMIS to create more or less global mosaics (see HierarchicalTriangularMesh), nobody will want to do a sloppy job with their own data. -- MikkoSyrjaesuo - 23 Aug 2007

Disclaimer

GAIA takes no responsibility about the accuracy of the data. The users should contact the relevant PI(s) for verifying the validity of the data.