The number of datasets in the Swedish IPY Data Repository (http://ipy.smhi.se) has increased slowly. Theres is now metadata for 58 datasets in our repository. Most of those datasetsonly only include metadata but no data are available. But many of the publishers have marked the data as “Data Set Progress = Complete” and give a link to their web-site (or to our OpenDAP-service). Then a user might think that on this web-site there is data available. But for most of the datasets this is not true. This might be frustrating for the user, who search for data. The definitiion of “Data Set Progress = Complete” is “Complete refers to data sets in which no updates or further data collection will be made”. This definition does not says that data shall be made availble for external usage. Maybe a better definition would be “Completed refers to data sets in which no updates or further data collection will be made and the data are made available for external usage”???
Of course one possibility is not insert the link (Related URL) until data are available. But reserachers often have interesting web-sites and it might be of general interest to present the link to this web-site even before data is available.
Any comments or ideas?
