Our Mission
Our distributed, cross-institutional NFDI4Earth User Support Network (USN) builds on the established user support structures of participating institutions. The USN serves as a single point of contact for user requests that cannot be addressed via NFDI4Earth OneStop4All and require individual consultation. By bringing together the distributed research data management expertise within the USN and leveraging the NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub, the NFDI4Earth team promotes best practices for working with data and guides researchers in making their data FAIRer and more open, while respecting privacy and legal constraints.
Our Support
Support will encourage researchers to self-reflect on the FAIR principles by asking: Is my data FAIR, and if not, what steps can I take to improve it? This aspect of the FAIR journey is closely linked to data curation, data quality (including the quality of descriptions and metadata), and the procedures and options for data ingest, as these enable the automated validation of data formats and metadata descriptions. To make comprehensive and long-tail datasets FAIRer and future-proof - and to promote a cultural shift toward FAIR and open research data - it is essential to facilitate a solid understanding of data ingest procedures and options.
We are happy to support you with your research data management question via the contact form.
The Earth System Sciences community is characterized by a large, diverse number of repositories, millions of heterogeneous datasets, and a wide range of data services and good practices. We have successfully addressed over 100 requests from the global Earth System Sciences (ESS) community, providing support and guidance on navigating the vast and diverse landscape of ESS repositories, datasets, and services. Here are some examples:
"We have created numerous, mostly multitemporal, terrain and surface models of our study areas using different methods. We would like to deposit data into a digital repository to archive them and make them available for other projects. We need advice on selecting a suitable repository and determining the appropriate processing state for deposition."
"I need derived ERA5 data for my research and would like to share it with my community through a Web service. Could you advise me where to find a suitable Web service?"
"I am interested in downloading storm surge data for the North Sea coast. Are these data directly accessible via a data portal, and are they available at hourly resolution?"
"I would like to publish my research data in a repository to get a DOI for my upcoming paper. The data includes underground monitoring recordings, that is, it is managed in large audio files."
Become a Helpdesk Expert
Considering the breadth of the ESS discipline and the diversity of requests, we are looking for volunteers who would share their expertise and support other researchers by becoming an NFDI4Earth helpdesk expert. More information is available here.
Our helpdesk actively collaborates with the helpdesks of other thematically related NFDI consortia (DataPLANT, FAIRagro, GHGA, NFDI4Biodiversity, NFDI4Bioimage, NFDI4Chem, NFDI4Earth, NFDI4Health, NFDI4Immuno, NFDI4Microbiota) to strengthen our shared support capabilities. By exchanging best practices, resources, and domain expertise, we ensure an efficient and well-coordinated approach to user support across disciplines.
