Speaker
Description
Recent discoveries in astroparticle physics, including cosmic accelerators, gravitational waves from black-hole mergers, and astronomical neutrino sources, underscore the importance of a multi-messenger approach. The transient and rare nature of these astrophysical phenomena necessitates interdisciplinary work with diverse modern and historical data, emphasizing the need for FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data management.
Founded in 2013, the KASCADE Cosmic-ray Data Centre (KCDC) was a pioneer in publishing comprehensive data from the KASCADE-Grande experiment and adopting recent data curation trends. Today, KCDC is a web-based platform for high-energy astroparticle physics, offering open access to datasets from experiments like KASCADE-Grande, LOPES, Maket-Ani and others. These datasets are available in widely used formats, accessible via a web portal or an API, and enriched with both high-level and discipline-specific metadata to enhance findability and interoperability. Beyond serving as a data archive, KCDC provides a wide range of other digital resources, including cosmic ray energy spectra, simulations, tutorials, and Jupyter Notebooks, supported by a JupyterLab-based online analysis platform. Our current efforts focus on enriching these digital objects with machine-readable metadata and developing a unified metadata schema to standardize data management across the platform. This approach aims to simplify curation and align KCDC metadata with the standards of partner platforms, such as the PUNCH4NFDI Data Platform. Collaboration through initiatives like PUNCH4NFDI and NAPMIX on advanced metadata standards and tools supports interdisciplinary research, enabling KCDC to continually improve its data management strategies and broaden access to its digital resources.
This presentation will discuss data management on the KCDC platform, the metadata tools in use, and ongoing metadata schema developments.