In order to increase the visibility and legacy value of data collections in the ESO Science Archive, Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) have been created for them. DOIs provide permanent and unique links to text, web pages and other digital resources, in this case astronomical data. They are an important component towards ESO's ambition of supporting Open Data principles and making data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). With time it is planned to extend the creation of DOIs to contributed datasets, e.g., to reflect the exact list of files used in a paper.
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for Data Collections in the ESO Science Archive
Published: 09 May 2022
The list of the DOIs currently available can be found here. All identifiers are linked to landing pages (see e.g., this example) that provide basic descriptions of the data sets. Entries will be added as new collections are published in the archive.
When using data from those collections, e.g., in a publication, authors are required to cite the corresponding DOIs, so that their use can be properly tracked and acknowledged, and links be established between data and papers in the ESO Library’s telescope bibliography (telbib). The ESO Data Access Policy was updated accordingly. Many thanks in advance for supporting the new service and policy!