Processes

Warning

Please be aware that we are in the process of modernising our models to facilitate a new release of Data Central. To support this we have paused the acceptance of new data until April 2026. Please don’t generate any metadata for your upcoming Data Central data, as there will be changes to the metadata format that will supersede your work. Our documentation will be updated when we are ready to receive your metadata, and we will notify you through our usual channels: the ASA mailing list, and the datacentral-announce Slack channel.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

If you have any questions about this documentation during the preparation of your data release, please contact us by following this link and choosing to Add new data.

Response Timescales

We endeavour to implement any change-requests as soon as possible, however the DC team is currently relatively small. Please see below for a rough estimate on update timescales. Please note, these are a guide only, subject to the complexity of the update requested, and additional constraints on our time (e.g., other survey-team data releases, conferences, funding milestones etc).

Data and Schema Changes

For critical changes (e.g., data product files/catalogues need to be replaced with new versions), we will work towards an update turnaround of ~1 week. For non-critical changes (e.g., minor schema changes) we guarantee update timescales less than 1 month. To clarify whether a change is critical or non-critical, contact us by following this link and choosing to Add new data.

Interface Issue

For critical interface issues (e.g., blocking data access) we aim to address any issue submitted by any user within 1 week (though usually within 48 hours). For non-critical issues (e.g., mis-alignment on mobile view) we aim to publish a fix within 1 month.

Feature Requests

Data Central is developed with its users in mind. We’d love to hear your suggestions for new features you’d like to see developed, plus give you the opportunity to vote on the functionality you’d like to see prioritized.

Please suggest new features on our requests page by following this link and choosing to Suggest a new feature. We use this information to guide our milestones and future development effort.