Dataset Lifecycle Policy Development & Implementation at the PO.DAAC

As part of on-going efforts to advance data stewardship standards and promote best practices in the field of earth science data management, NASA's Physical Oceanography Data archive (PO.DAAC), has developed and implemented a dataset lifecycle policy that governs the curation of our satellite data holdings. This lifecycle policy provides a framework, formalized process and requirements checklist useful for planning and managing datasets through the various phases of data archival at the PO.DAAC. Here we provide an overview of this framework including its motivation and the various lifecycle stages identified, from dataset identification/prioritization to archival planning, integration/testing, operations, ultimately through to retirement. Each phase is described in terms of its purpose, policy, associated artifacts and exit criteria, and the actors and roles involved. The generality of the framework to handle version control scenarios and the adaptability of the approach is reviewed. Usage of the dataset lifecycle policy as a tool for characterizing the status of PO.DAAC datasets and as metric that feeds into assessment of dataset maturity are also discussed.