Data Standards
The consortium, based on experiences from other projects, has agreed on standards for data assimilation and storage, including file formats and metadata. The guidelines for data documentation will be made publicly accessible via the project webpage and serve as a reference to all consortium members.
General standards
Selected file formats shall permit easy and software independent access to the data. The following formats shall be used:
| Data Type | File Format |
| Tabular data (e.g. sensor outputs or aggregated data from suverys) | csv, xslx (for work-in-progress files, final files shall be exported to cvs for long-term archiving) |
| Graphics | png, tiff, svg, jpg (only for photos) |
| Video | avi |
| Audio | wav |
| Textual data | dat, pdf , docx (for work-in-progress files, final files shall be exported to pfd for longterm archiving) |
| Program code | py, mat |
Meta Data
For each dataset a contact person will be named who was responsible for data collection and can provide further details on request. In addition, along with each dataset a short description of the study context and setup shall be provided (e.g., farm details, sensor locations and timeframe for sensor data or details on sample group and survey period for social diagnosis). Meta data provision shall be structured according to the following list of attributes and associated content:
| Attributes | Content |
| Data type | Sensor data, survey data or other |
| Spatial framework | Country + geographic location (e.g. farm name and building where sensor data was collected or institution where a survey was conducted, could be also telephone or online) |
| Temporal framwork | Start + end (data and time in format JJJJ-MM-DD hh:mm) |
| Setup | For sensor data collection: housing details [building dimensions (length x width x height in meter), ventilation system (natural or mechanical), milking system (automated or x-times/day), manure management (solid floor or slatted floor or compost or other: manure removal frequency), herd size and breed, average milk yield, average live weight], sensor location [indoor/outdoor, lateral distances to center of the building, height from floor] and assessed variable [full name, abbreviation, unit, sampling frequency, sensor dead time, measurement accuracy, detection limits] - for survey data: sample group [group name (e.g. processor, regulating body, farmer, etc.), sample size, ID-Code (only a counter: contact details to arrange the interviews/surveys and other personal data that is necessary in the study context will be stored only in the respective country / institute and not transferred to offer project partners or published)] |
| Comments | Optional |
| Investigator | Name, institute, email |