Preparing and publishing Jornada data

Published

November 2, 2025

Once data are clean and ready to analyze or publish, it is best to describe the data with metadata that is as detailed as needed to allow interpretation and re-use. The EDI repository has more guidance here, and the Jornada IM team tries to offer extensive assistance to researchers who need to describe their datasets for publication. Its a good idea to start collecting and organizing metadata as soon as you start collecting data. There are two recommended ways to collect and organize metadata: EDI’s ezEML tool or Jornada metadata templates. These are described below.

ezEML

The EDI repository has created a web app called ezEML for describing research datasets and creating standardized metadata documents for publication (EML). The tool is new but has rapidly developed to become an excellent method to author well-documented datasets. There is a Jornada EML template available on the site, so the recommended process for Jornada researchers is:

  1. Log in to ezEML using your Google, GitHub, or ORCID account (whichever is easiest).
  2. Start a new EML document using the “EML Documents > New from Template” menu item
  3. Navigate to and select the “LTER/JRN/JRN_template_general” template to open a document template pre-populated with Jornada metadata.
  4. Give the document a unique name. You can save your metadata and then return to this document anytime.
  5. Follow the sequence of forms on the left, and ezEML’s prompts, to upload data files and enter metadata for your dataset. Each section of your metadata will have help available (“?” icons) and several fields will already be filled if you are using the JRN template.
  6. Use the “Check metadata” and “Check data tables” tools at the bottom left to check the completeness and validity of your dataset. Green lights mean your dataset is well described and ready to share.
  7. When ready, click “Submit/Share Package” and then “Collaborate with Colleagues”. DO NOT USE “Submit Package to EDI” or we may miss your dataset.
  8. On the “Invite a Collaborator” screen share the dataset with a Jornada data manager (mailto:jornada.data@nmsu.edu).

At this point, the Jornada IM Team will receive a notification and can access your dataset in ezEML to review, edit, and publish to EDI.

Metadata templates

A metadata template is a document with a structure and cues that help you collect the essential metadata needed to describe a published dataset. We have created Jornada metadata templates in MS Word (.docx) or Excel (.xlsx) formats. These templates contain sections for all critical pieces of metadata, along with instructions on what to include and how to structure the information. The Excel version is slightly more detailed and may be useful for complex datasets. Completed templates and accompanying data files should be sent to the Jornada IM team (mailto:jornada.data@nmsu.edu).

General Jornada metadata guidelines

While writing metadata, the Jornada metadata standards (.docx) and keyword thesauri (.xlsx) documents are helpful, but not required.

Publishing datasets

Datasets, which include data and metadata describing that data, that are generated from Jornada research projects should be submitted to the IM team () regularly according the policy outlined above. Once submitted, preparation and publication of a Jornada dataset is usually an iterative process (Figure 1). Researchers submit data and metadata to a Jornada Information Manager who then securely archives the data and checks these items for quality and consistency. Usually there is a period of communication and updates between the IM and the researcher until the dataset is ready for publication. Once it is, the IM encodes the data into something called an EML file, and then sends it, with the data, to the Environmental Data Initiative repository (EDI) as a published dataset. There are other variations on this process, depending on the data, but this is the most common.

Figure 1: A simplified schematic of how to publish a Jornada dataset.