EU/MAST-MATER database ( ): A reference database of high quality multidisciplinary data collected within the framework of a major international research project, in the Mediterranean Sea Giorgetti, A.; Fichaut, M.; Iona, A.; Manca, B.; Maillard, C.; Balopoulos, E. … The EU/MAST-MATER research project, aiming at studying “MAss Transfer and Ecosystem Response” of the Mediterranean Sea, has been a major multidisciplinary fieldwork. It was implemented during the period and gathered 58 research groups from 10 EU Member States and 3 non-EU States. During the project implementation, a total of 108 oceanographic cruises (representing more than 1000 days of ship time) were carried out by 12 research vessels … … A distributed data management structure, based on three regional data centres, was designed … … The project data management was supported by a Data Quality Expert Group (…) with the aim of supervising and reviewing data collection techniques and … From: Maillard et al., J. Mar. Sys (2002), RDC W Basin RDC Adriatic Ionian RDC E Basin Animation Task Quality Experts Committee Data Manager Project Co-ordinator DATA MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE RDC Eastern Basin Efstathios Balopoulos, Sissy Iona National Centre for Marine Research PO Box Anavyssos (GREECE) Tel : Fax: RDC Western Basin Catherine Maillard, Michele Fichaut SISMER, Centre IFREMER de Brest BP 70, Plouzané (FRANCE) Tel : +33 (0) Fax : +33 (0) SISMER HNODC RDC Adriatic/Ionian Basin Bruno Manca, Alessandra Giorgetti Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale - OGS Borgo Grotta Gigante 42/c Sgonico, Trieste (ITALY) Tel : Fax : OGS EXCHANGE FORMAT The ASCII auto-descriptive MEDATLAS FORMAT is used with common codes based on the international IOC/GF3 and ICES standards. QUALITY ASSURANCE Data Quality Assurance is a high point of the MTP II-MATER project, at all stages of the data handling:  The data are collected and validated by the scientific laboratories according to internationally agreed standards  Quality checks are performed at the regional data centres before the final archiving, in conformity with IOC and MAST requirements  The results of these checks are transmitted to the scientists in charge of the data sets for cross-checking CIRCULATION OF INFORMATION AND DATA Within one month :  Summary reports for cuises (ROSCOP), moorings and description of the main instruments/methods were made available on the Web Within six month after the field experiment :  Validated data sets corrected from instrumental errors and data reports including documentation on the data collection, processing and validation (EDMED) were sent for archiving to the Regional Data Centre QC0 : Completeness of the information and format QC1 : Automatic and visual checks on date and location QC2 : Automatic and visual checks on the observations