South African Environmental Observation Network

SAEON Data Management

SAEON can assist with the publication of earth and environmental observation datasets. The data management team supports standardised, interoperable data stores for a wide variety of data types including spatial and multidimensional data.

SAEON offers the ability to store metadata and datasets in a secure environment that protects the intellectual property rights of the data providers. Metadata must accompany all datasets that are archived or published in our Open Data Platform.

Our open access data systems focus on long-term environmental observation data and operate on the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data principles. 

A model for FAIR Data Objects

Open Data

SAEON curates data and develops open data systems and applications, which are distributed on an Open Data Platform (ODP). The ODP directly supports and allows users free access to and visualisation of spatial and non-spatial data. This includes impacts of global change on human and natural environments. 

Open Data refers to data that is freely available, can be accessed, used and/or changed and republished by anyone.

Digital Object Identifiers

SAEON is able to issue Digital Object Identifiers (DOI’s) for published datasets through DataCite, making the data available in international catalogues. All datasets with DOI’s have quality assured metadata, and can be cited in scholarly publications