Checklist for Authors of Science Articles in Solar Physics

Goals :

• Ensure that research is reproducible.
• Track information that might affect your analysis
• Make it easier for others to retrieve the data that you used (to reviewing or expand your work)
• Allow data archives & software authors to find who's using their work, so they can get continued funding.
• Allow archives to determine when re-calibration may affect published literature.

Background:

• ​AGU Town Hall on Data Citation
• ​"How to Cite a Data Set" from IPY
• ​"Catalog Checklist" (for people publishing catalogs)

Policy :

• Data used in articles should be made publicly available by the time of publication.
• If the data is not already available from an archive, it should be included as a supplement to the article.
• Observations should be sufficiently described to allow reviewers or other scientists to easily verify the article's claims.

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Information to Keep Track of

When downloading data, keep track of:

• What data did I collect to analyze?

• If you collected the data yourself:
  • When and where did you collect it?
  • What are the observing characteristics of the instrument(s) used?
  • Were there any anomalies when observing that might affect the data?

• If using existing data:
  • What archive did I get it from?
  • Did I use the archive's interface, or use other software like VSO, HELIO, helioviewer, etc?
  • Was there a specific query that I ran to select the data?
    • If so, did I use all of the search results, or did I filter it in some way?
    • If not, what was the selection criteria?
    • Or, what was the list of files / URLs ?
  • Note : the above items are saved in the VSO Shopping Cart, so make a note of the 'Cart ID' if you used it)
  • When did I download the data?

When analyzing data, keep track of:

• What data did I analyze?
  • Did I exclude any data, and if so, why? (eg, only used AEC or non AEC images)
  • Did I use full images, or cutouts (aka. active region patches) ?

• What processing did I apply before I did my analysis?

• What software did I use for processing & analysis?

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The Checklist

• Have I described the data that was used in this research?
  • In terms of the instrument / observatory / observatory group used?
    • And the specific dataset that was used? (eg, used the PI provided Level 2 data vs. the L0 data that you processed yourself) Note : working on ​recommendations for data providers to provide consistent names or identifiers to each dataset.
  • In terms of day/time being analyzed?
  • In terms of location being analyzed (if not 'full disk')
  • In terms of any subsetting done of the data?
    • If using a lower cadence than the original data:
      • What cadence was used ('1 per minute' vs. '1 per day')
      • How the cadence aligned (eg, '1 per day, first image after midnight UT' vs. '1 per day, closest to local solar noon')
    • If using only a specific observing mode or filter:
      • 'total brightness' vs. 'polarized brightness' for instruments such as SECCHI/COR2
      • Specific wavelengths from SOHO/EIT, STEREO/SECCHI/EUVI, SDO/AIA, etc.
      • AEC vs. non AEC for SDO/AIA.
    • If using cutouts from the original data
      • eg, "200 arcsec patch centered on AR10943" vs. "200 arcsec wide by 400 arcsec high centered on ... "
      • ... "centered on 400 xSun,-600 ySun" vs "centered on 45W60N"

• If using reduced resolution images
  • The size of the resulting images, and how it was reduced.
  • '1024x1024 images, 4x4 binned' vs. '2048x2048 images, sampled using the lower left pixel'

• In terms of where I obtained it from (from which archive, at what time)
  • Specified which specific version of the data you used, if the archive provides more than one.
    • eg, 'daily movies' vs. 'level 0 FITS files' vs. 'level 1 JPEGs'

• Have I described any additional processing that I did to the data for analysis?
  • Flat fielding, point spread removed, etc.

• Have I acknowledged software and tools used ...
  • to find & obtain data (HEK, VSO, HELIO, AstroGrid, Solar Monitor, etc.)
  • to visualize data (Helioviewer, JHelioviewer, SolarWeather Browser, etc.)
  • to process the data (SolarSoft, PDL, SunPy, IRAF, etc.)

• If there were models or catalogs used:
  • Have I provided a reference to the article in which they were introduced?

• If discussing specific events:
  • Have I given the time and coordinate of the event(s)?
  • Have I provided an ​identifier for the event(s)?

• Is the data available for others to review?
  • Is the data available from an archive online, or have I included it for submission as a suplement to the article?
  • If I have significantly processed the data, have I included my processed data for submission as a suplement to the article or to an appropriate archive for distribution?