Latest change 8 Feb 2021

The PGN provides data free to the public. In return, we ask that you follow the PGN data use guidelines. The PGN data are provided by an international group of researchers with a variety of affiliations and institutional support. Each site has a Principal Investigator (PI) and local operators, responsible for deployment, maintenance and data collection. The PI and local operators have invested considerable effort in the production of the data and they are entitled to be informed of any use of data produced by that site. 

Using PGN data

We suggest consulting with the PI(s) of the instruments about the data to be used, if there are specific questions or apparent issues with the data. While we make an effort to ensure uniformly high data quality, each PGN instrument has a unique location that can affect the representativeness of the data. The PI may have information about the local environment of an instrument that is important in your analysis.

Publishing PGN data

Co-authorship

We recognize that it is entirely the decision of the primary author of a manuscript to decide upon co-authors. We suggest that if the PGN data from a few sites are a major component of the paper then co-authorship to PI(s) be offered. In the event that co-authorship is not justified, an acknowledgment is sufficient. If PGN data are used in combination with data from other sources and co-authorship is offered to their PIs, then co-authorship should also be offered to the PGN PIs.

Example acknowledgments

Example acknowledgment when using PGN data from a ‘few’ sites:

“We thank PI(s) and staff for their effort in establishing and maintaining (site name(s)) sites and (Agency) for funding.”

Example acknowledgment when using data from ‘many’ sites:

“We thank the PI(s), support staff and funding for establishing and maintaining the (#) sites of the PGN used in this investigation.”

In all cases to be added to the acknowledgment

“The PGN is a bilateral project supported with funding from NASA and ESA.”