Data reporting formats
Make your data more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) and AI-ready using guidelines and templates developed by ESS-DIVE and our partner projects. Consistent data formatting and descriptions enable both machines and humans to more readily understand and reuse valuable data both now and in the future. Read our paper on the development process of the ESS-DIVE reporting formats (Crystal-Ornelas et al., 2023).
Reporting formats are data standards developed by ESS-DIVE and partner projects to standardize metadata and data files of data types commonly collected by DOE ESS projects. These reporting formats will be used to enable synthesis across datasets on ESS-DIVE.
In the latest versions, we are actively working on transitioning our reporting formats to AI-ready formats. Sign up for our mailing list to hear updates about the rollout of our revised AI-ready reporting formats.
Quick Start Checklist
Use our Reporting Format Checklist to incorporate ESS-DIVE reporting formats in your scientific workflows.
Access metadata and data templates and instructions
Visit our ESS-DIVE Workspace on GitHub and our documentation page to find out more about our reporting formats. There you will find guidelines, templates, and tools for each data reporting format.
| Reporting Format | Status |
| Dataset Metadata | Ready for use |
| File Level Metadata | Ready for use |
| CSV File Formatting Guidelines | Ready for use |
| Sample IDs and Metadata | Ready for use |
| Locations Metadata | Ready for use |
| Model Data Archiving Guidelines | Ready for use |
| Leaf-Level Gas Exchange | Ready for use |
| Soil Respiration | In Revision |
| Hydrologic Monitoring | In Revision |
| Water-Soil-Sediment Chemistry | In Revision |
| 16S Amplicon Sequencing | Ready for use |
| Unoccupied Aerial Systems | Ready for use |
| Sensor Data | In Development |
| Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) Model Data Archiving | In Development |
A roadmap to FAIR and AI-ready data in ESS-DIVE
The figure below illustrates the workflow data contributors can follow to adhere to existing data reporting formats. The blue boxes (A) depict reporting formats (CSV, sample identifiers, locations metadata, and model data guidelines) that can be combined with other domain-specific formats where relevant. The orange boxes (B) describe domain-specific reporting formats and the purple box (C) describes file-level metadata that should be provided for each file in the data package that is uploaded to ESS-DIVE.
Provide Feedback
To provide feedback on any of the formats we recommend visiting our ESS-DIVE Workspace on GitHub. From there, select the format you would like to submit feedback on, and click on the “issues” tab along the top of the reporting format’s page. You can submit a new issue using one of our issue templates that help ESS-DIVE organize updates to the data reporting formats. If you would prefer to submit your feedback over email, please contact the ESS-DIVE support team at ess-dive-support [at] lbl.gov.