The Basics: Key Terms & Systems

Understanding these core concepts is the first step to a successful data archive.

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PARR (Public Access to Research Results)

This is the federal mandate that says we have to make our research data available to the public.

NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information)

Serves as the designated archive for NOAA’s environmental data, responsible for its long-term preservation and accessibility.

InPort

This is our metadata catalog. Every dataset needs an InPort record so people can find it and understand it. It’s the who, what, where, when, and how for your data.

S2N (Send2NCEI)

This is the website you’ll use to bundle up your data, metadata, and other documents into a package to officially send to the NCEI archive.

NODD (NOAA Open Data Dissemination)

This is our go-to for putting large datasets (like raw imagery) on Google Cloud so people can access them.