Overview of the Phase 3 Process
The Phase 3 process consists of the following steps:
1. Define new data release - 2. Delegate Phase 3 permissions - 3. Prepare the data - 4. Validate the data - 5. Upload the data to ESO - 6. Create and upload the release description - 7. Closing the release - 8. ESO validates the submitted data - 9. ESO archives and publishes the data
1. Define new data release
Go to the Phase 3 Release Manager, a dedicated web application for controlling the Phase 3 process, to define a new data release. As the principal investigator of an ESO programme you organise your data products according to appropriate high-level criteria into self-consistent groups, called data collections, which, subsequently, the archive user can browse and access. Later on you may issue further releases to add more data or to update already released data products.
More about the concepts of data collection and release, see the Phase 3 User Guide, Sect. 4.5.
2. Delegate Phase 3 permissions
As the principal investigator you can delegate the Phase 3 process for your ESO programme to one or more persons of your choice to distribute the effort of data submission and release preparation.
How to set up Phase 3 delegation, see the Phase 3 User Guide, Sect. 4.4
3. Prepare the data
The data should be prepared according to the ESO External Data Products standard which specifies data product types and their formats.
Download the ESO External Data Products standard
4. Validate the data
You validate the data before uploading to ESO using the Phase 3 Release Validator, a java-based tool to be run locally on your system. Repeat the validation until you obtain as result the "OK" for data upload.
Download the software and its documentation
5. Upload the data to ESO
You upload the data via secure FTP to the dedicated server phase3ftp.eso.org. For this purpose a suitable client like lftp or FileZilla has to be used.
Find more information about the FTP upload
6. Create and upload the release description
You create and upload the data release description, which provides an account of the release content, the originating observations, the calibration and data reduction procedures, the data quality, the data format, and, possibly, the scientific context of the programme.
More about the preparation and submission of the data release description
7. Closing the release
By closing the release you approve the completeness and correctness of the submitted data and its description. Furthermore, you agree to the publication of the data and the associated data release description. You close the data release using the Phase 3 Release Manager. Closing the data release turns the data on the FTP area into read-only state, i.e. you cannot modify existing files or add new data anymore.
More about closing the data release, see the Phase 3 User Guide, Sect. 4.8.
8. ESO validates the submitted data
This is a two-step process, consisting of an automatic validation of the data format followed by a manual validation of the content and its description. If the validation fails, the release state will change from CLOSED to ERROR and you will receive a notification by e-mail, which prompts you to correct the problems and to CLOSE the release again.
9. ESO archives and publishes the data
The data release will be archived and becomes public after the validation process has been concluded. The community will be able to access the data via specifc query interfaces in the ESO archive web pages. You will be notified about the actual date of public release.